Main Cast: Scott Glenn, Alberta Watson, Jürgen Prochnow, Robert Prosky, Gabriel Byrne
Release Year: 1983
Country: UK
Run Time: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The Keep is an ambitious visual feast from director Michael Mann, whose previous effort was the moody, stylish Thief, and who would soon produce the quintessential pastel-colored '80s TV series Miami Vice. Adapted from the novel by F. Paul Wilson and set in German-occupied Romania of 1943, the film introduces the invaders to the dark presence lurking within the walls of an ancient fortress in the Carpathian Alps -- a presence which doesn't take well to unwanted guests. When soldiers under the command of Captain Woermann (Jurgen Prochnow) begin to die horribly, he receives the unwanted assistance of Nazi Major Kampffer (Gabriel Byrne), who immediately assumes command and forcibly enlists the aid of the local expert on ancient languages, the Jewish Doctor Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen), in the translation of the cryptic writings left near a murdered soldier's body. When Cuza comes face-to-face with the Keep's ancient resident -- an ethereal creature which gains strength by draining the life-force from its enemies -- he forms a pact with the creature in the hope that it will escape and destroy Hitler's armies. When a mysterious stranger (Scott Glenn) arrives at the nearby village and befriends Cuza's daughter Eva (Alberta Watson), he reveals the true nature of the beast within the Keep, as well as his intent to destroy it before Cuza can release it -- a task which, if failed, will spell doom for all mankind. The film's fever-dream-logic casts a hypnotic spell -- ably assisted by Tangerine Dream's pulsating, ethereal music (including electronic variations on a theme by Thomas Tallis) -- with a story that seems to play by the Keep's own eerie supernatural rules. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
Review
For The Keep, director Michael Mann seemingly ordered all smoke machines in existence and left them on for the entirety of the shoot. His second feature, it contains the synth-soaked soundtrack (by Tangerine Dream) and moody overabundance one would expect from the director who brought MTV video styles to narrative filmmaking, but this intriguing update of the Golem story to World War II Romania is entirely unexpected. Ian McKellen plays a crippled concentration camp escapee recruited by an otherworldly giant to help him escape from within the walls of the titular keep so that he can avenge the crimes of the Nazis. Those expecting a traditional horror movie may be disappointed. The film concentrates more on its dreary pulsing set-up than any action-filled pay-off. Its bombastic self-seriousness and brooding eccentric characters may be its greatest asset or biggest turn-off, depending on your point of view. The Keep was something of a bomb with audiences uninterested in an Eastern European-flavored revenge fantasy and morality tale involving the Holocaust. While not quite an overlooked masterpiece, it still deserves critical and audience reconsideration. Released in 1983, The Keep shares an arty-horror vibe similar to Tony Scott's The Hunger from that same year -- a gloomy approach that would be dropped by both directors in their transition to blockbuster-level directors. ~ Michael Buening, All Movie Guide
Ian McKellen - Dr. Cuza; William Morgan Sheppard - Alexandru; Royston Tickner - Tomescu; David Cardy - Alexandru's Son; Michael Carter - Molasar; Rosalie Crutchley - Josefa; Jona Jones - Otto; Phillip Joseph - Oster; Wolf Kahler - S.S. Adjutant; Renny Krupinski - Wehrmacht Soldier; Bruce Payne - Border Guard; John Vine - Lutz; Frederick Warder - Border Guard; Stephen Whittaker - S.S. Commando; Phillip Bloomfield - Josefa's Son; John Eastham - Alexandru's Second Son; Stephen Jenn - S.S. Commando; Peter Guinness - Wehrmacht Soldier
Credit
Alan Tomkins - Art Director, Herbert Westbrook - Art Director, Richard Brams - Associate Producer, Anthony Mendleson - Costume Designer, Ray Corbett - First Assistant Director, Roger Simons - First Assistant Director, Michael Mann - Director, Dov Hoenig - Editor, Colin M. Brewer - Executive Producer, Tangerine Dream - Composer (Music Score), Christopher Franke - Composer (Music Score), Graham Freeborn - Makeup, Nick Maley - Makeup, Nick Allder - Makeup Special Effects, John Box - Production Designer, Alex Thomson - Cinematographer, Colin M. Brewer - Producer, Gene Kirkwood - Producer, Howard W. Koch - Producer, Nick Allder - Special Effects, Wally Veevers - Special Effects, Robin Browne - Special Effects, Roger Simons - Special Effects, Robin Gregory - Sound/Sound Designer, Dennis Clark - Screenwriter, Michael Mann - Screenwriter, F. Paul Wilson - Book Author
Wilson has expressed his distaste for the film version publicly, writing in the short story collection The Barren (and Others) that it is, "Visually intriguing, but otherwise utterly incomprehensible."
A board game based on the film was designed by James D. Griffin and published by Mayfair Games.
The film focuses on a deserted citadel (the "Keep" of the title) in WWII Romania within which lies entrapped a dangerous and malevolent entity named (Radu) Molasar. When the German Wehrmacht occupies the castle to control the Dinu Mountain Pass, Molasar is unwittingly unleashed from deep within the innermost recesses of the citadel by a pair of treasure-seeking soldiers and he consumes their life energy. A detachment of Einsatzkommandos then arrives to deal with what is thought to be partisan activity. The Einsatzkommandos' actions only fuel the demon's hunger for bloodshed and soon more troops begin to die in mysterious, gruesome ways.
At the instigation of the local priest, the Germans are duped into retrieving Jewish History Professor Cuza from a death camp to decipher a mysterious message emblazoned on a wall of the Keep. The demonic and, at this point, cloudlike Molasar saves the professor's daughter, Eva Cuza, from a sexual assault by two German soldiers and then enlists the aid of her grateful father to escape from the Keep. Cuza is also cured of his debilitating scleroderma by the touch of Molasar and therefore becomes doubly indebted to the malevolent entity. A mysterious stranger arrives to foil this plan, however. After a misguided and unsuccessful attempt by the professor to have the stranger stopped, the two supernatural beings engage in a confrontation in which the demon is weakened and drawn back into the innermost recesses, and the hero inevitably finds himself pulled in as well, his fate linked with the demon that he presumably never had the courage to kill before. At this point, the studio version of the film comes to an end.
In the extended version of the film, the otherworldly stranger, identified by Eva Cuza as Glaeken "Trismaegistus" (Latin for "Three-Fold Master") in an easily overlooked line (the demon too is named in the scene), after falling for a long time through the abyss of the keep's lower caves, wakes later up on the lowest level of the Keep and notices he can see his reflection in a puddle of water. This indicates that, presumably due to the death of the demon with whom he was mystically linked, he has become an ordinary mortal man, instead of dying as he had predicted. Eva comes to him, and he is now free to live out the rest of his natural span with the woman who rescues him.
