The Keep (1983)

In 1942 a division of German soldiers arrive at a village in the Dinu Pass in Romania. A strategic pathway through the mountains for eventual Allied invasion, the soldiers decide to make use of a medieval keep as their base of operations.  However, Captain Klaus Woermann (Jürgen Prochnow), while touring the Keep with its caretaker (William Morgan Sheppard) and his sons, realizes that the fortress appears to have been built inside-out - as if it was meant to keep something in.

During the tour, the caretaker sees a soldier attempting to remove one of the nickel crosses from the wall, thinking it to be silver.  In punishment, Woermann gives the soldier first watch, but the young man keeps thinking that there may be treasure in the Keep.  He indeed finds a silver cross and, with the help of another soldier, pries it loose - removing a stone block in the process and revealing a chamber with another silver cross at the bottom.  In his attempt to get that one as well, he knocks out the block it is attached to, revealing a vast underground chamber containing an ancient monument.  From that monument appears a light, which proceeds to both burn and dismember both soldiers.

Concerned with the mysterious deaths that begin to occur, Woermann writes to his superiors requesting relocation.  Instead, they send Major Kaempfer (Gabriel Byrne) of the S.S., who proceeds, against Woermann's wishes, to kill the villagers in retaliation.  Kaempfer blames partisans and, after finding a strange inscription that no one can read, send for the elderly Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellan) and his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson), who are currently awaiting transportation to a concentration camp.  Bringing them to the Keep, Cuza agrees to help find out what is attacking the soldiers.  However, this is merely a delaying tactic, as the local Orthodox priest Mihail (Robert Prosky) has plans to smuggle the Cuzas out of the country.

Into the mix also comes another man, Glaeken (Scott Glenn), who is drawn to the keep after the block is removed.  He arrives in the village and becomes Eva's lover.  Meanwhile, Dr. Cuza becomes tempted by the force within the Keep, Molasar (Michael Carter), which tempts him with youth and the power to wipe out the Nazi regime, if only he will retrieve and remove a talisman that keeps Molasar locked within.  Both Father Mihail and Glaeken intend to prevent this from happening in any circumstance, although the remaining soldiers quickly find out they are up against something from their greatest nightmares.

The Keep has many, many problems, but that does not keep it from being a good movie.  Too bad Michael Mann has prevented this from being released on DVD, since the prints that are out there (in several forms) are a bit on the dark side, have horrible audio mixing and, as great as I think Tangerine Dream's score is, it overpowers much of the dialogue and seems frequently out of place. The version I saw, by the way, appeared to be closer to the theatrical release, as it does contain the scene in which Eva realizes Glaeken cannot be seen in a mirror.

On the plus side, the movie often has a dreamlike feel.  The disjointedness may annoy some people, but in this case I found that it added to what is largely a simple plot about giving into temptation to fight evil with an equal evil.  The performances are great all around.  Still, it is obvious that it was heavily edited down from its original form, and I believe there are several different endings floating around.  Still, if you are a fan of Michael Mann's movies (I tend to find his directing record rather spotty), this is a must-see.  It's better than its reputation may have you believe.

The Keep (1983)
98 minutes
Starring: Jürgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne, Ian McKellan, Alberta Watson
Director: Michael Mann

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Image
Virtual reality has been one of the most hyped, and one of the most disappointing, promises of technology.  While it promotes immersion into a cybernetic world what it really provides are video games with 20-year-old graphics and the occasional bruise when one accidentally hits a closet door.  In the case of The Lawnmower Man  what it is promising is that something with graphics just a little bit better than Dire Straits's "Money for Nothing" video will somehow change the world and alter humanity. It was laughable then and it is laughable now.  The only person not laughing was Stephen King, who demanded that his name be removed from all future advertising for the movie because he never wrote this.  The story, of which a short film was made in the 1980s, involves a man unwittingly hiring a Greek god to mow his lawn and, after said god creates a spectacle, paying for the landscaping with his life.  It's only a few pages and, in my opinion, it is one of King's worst
Read more

Things (1989)

Image
Most of the time when I hear a movie is the worst ever I know that is hyperbole. There are few candidates and I would even say the famous book chronicling the worst movies ever made got it wrong.  Plan 9 from Outer Space is laughably incompetent, but enjoyable.  The worst kind of films are the ones where no joy can be found in the watching experience, for reasons ranging from unlikeable characters to just sheer boredom.  A truly horrible movie is something like  Things.   This is a 1989 direct-to-video horror film from Canada, filmed on 8mm and dubbed once it was completed and the makers realized most of the sound was unusable.  Director Andrew Jordan and writer Barry J. Gillis managed to grab porn star Amber Lynn for an hour to shoot her as a news reporter just so they could put her face on the video box.  Most of the music was done by Gillis, and some of it by a local band called Familiar Strangers.  It was filmed in large part in Andrew Norman's basement, and most of the props w
Read more

The Omen (1976)

Image
A movie does not have to be high art to strike a chord with the public.  The Omen was an attempt by writer David Seltzer to make some money and get a nice trip to the UK.  It just so happened that because of The Exorcist the public was hungry for more movies involving demons and such, and adding a veneer of Catholicism didn't hurt either.  The Vatican's secrets are most likely of more interest to scholars than anyone else, but a religion doesn't hang on over the centuries without creating a bit of mystery.  In this case, Seltzer settled on the Revelation of St. John, the low-fantasy portion of the Bible and, instead of an hilariously named (albeit historically correct) demon named Pazuzu, with The Omen we get the son of Satan himself.  When Robert Thorne (Gregory Peck) is informed that his child has died he visits a priest at the hospital in Rome where his wife is coalescing.  He is given an offer too good to be true: a foundling, whose mother died in childbirth, was born
Read more