THE KEEP (1983)
Label: Via Vision Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE (NTSC)
Rating: M
Duration: 96 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Scott Glen, Jürgen Prochnow, Robert Prosky, Ian McKellen, Alberta Watson, W. Morgan Sheppard
The Keep (1983) is a film that like so many others I first watched on late-night cable TV in the mid-80s when I way-too-young to be seeing such things. It's an experience that stuck with me, though it didn't make a lot of sense, but the Gothic-drenched WWII-era nightmare definitely made it's mark on me. The film's lack of coherency itself cannot be solely placed at the feet of director Michael Mann (Manhunter) who originally turned in a three and a half hour cut of the film, and when the studio balked he trimming it down to a svelte 120-min cut, and when that version tested poorly with audiences the studio took the film away from the director, only his second film after the heist-classic Thief (1981), and took the knife to it, cutting it down to ninety-six minutes. What was left is a strange film indeed, one that has always left me scratching my head, left to imagine what bit of connective tissue and strangeness were left on the cutting room floor by the studio when they yanked this out of the hands of the director.
Set in 1941 we have Nazi troops lead by Capt. Klaus Woermann (Jürgen Prochnow, In the Mouth of Madness) to a remote Romanian village located in Carpathian Mountains to secure a strategic area. They set-up base in a fortified stone citadel, an ancient keep built into the face of the encroaching mountain. The Nazis arrive and, against the wishes of the keep's caretaker Alexandru (W. Morgan Sheppard, Wild At Heart), set up operations inside the keep. Alexandru who warns the Captain that no one ever stays the night inside the keep, that an evil lurks within it's walls, but Woermann dismisses this notion as superstitious nonsense, but also taking notice that the keep seems to be constructed backwards, as if to keep something from escaping, not from coming in.
The interior of the keep is cold and stony, the walls adorned with nickel icons, and during the first night a pair of greedy Nazi soldiers mistake them for precious silver, attempting to pry one from the wall they accidentally open a hidden passageway revealing a massive interior cavern that seems to on for miles, inside their are stone pillars. They manage to unleash an evil entity that tears them apart, literally shattering one of them, but the strange deaths are attributed to villagers unhappy with the Nazis occupation. To thwart any further uprising the sadistic S.S. officer Sturmbannführer Erich Kaempffer (Gabriel Byrne, Hereditary) and a regiment of S.S. troops are summoned to the keep, whom immediately execute a handful of locals with a warning that more executions will follow if more Nazis are killed, which immediately puts him at odds with the more reasonable Woermann, who is sort of the Nazi-lite version, the not-so-evil-Nazi, if there was such a thing.
Later on a series of strange words appear on the wall of the keep with the Nazi's seeking help from the most unlikley of places,
summoning an ailing Jewish historian named Professor Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellan, X-Men), who they pull from a concentration camp to decipher the words. During his stay at the keep Professor Cuza encounters a strange smoke-monster with glowing red eyes and a glowing brain that has saved his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson, White of the Eye) from an assault by Nazi soldiers. The professor begins to be seduced by the evil presence, known as Radu Molasar, which has promised to destroy Hitler and the Nazis if the professor helps him escape from the citadel, even curing the professor of his debilitating ailments and seemingly restoring his youth. At the same time the evil presence has been released inside the citadel a mysterious figure in Greece, Glaeken (Scott Glenn, Slaughter of the Innocents), is aroused and instinctively travels to the Romanian village to face-off against the re-emerging supernatural threat.
For all it's problems one thing I can sat about The Keep is that is looks gorgeous, set in a tiny Romanian village in the Carpathian Mountains, we have an imposing ancient stone keep built into the side of a mountain, and inside that we have a labyrinth of corridors and a large main room drenched in fog, it's a total expressionistic orgy of visuals, complimented by a fantastic synth-score from Tangerine Dream (Three O'Clock High) that's both dreamy and menacing, giving the heightened visuals a hallucinatory feel, which helps the film quite a bit, having a dream-logic vibe about it the music serves that aesthetic.
The cast features some real heavy-hitters, we get some pros like Gabriel Byrne, Jürgen Prochnow, and Ian McKellen who some weight to the proceedings, even if the story feels muddles, you're at lest buying into their characters. Scott Glenn (The Right Stuff) is a bit cold, his character is mysterious and less developed, he seems very alien in nature, so he doesn't get a lot of depth. In fact, at some point he starts banging the professor's daughter and I was just like 'where did that come from'!?! Obviously the studio-cuts included a lot of establishing stuff, but the way it's presented here this sex scene just sort of happens strangely, which is something you could say about the whole film, it just sort of happens strangely!
I love the design of Molasar, who is revealed to us in stages, first emerging as the smoke-monster with a big red-glowing brain and eyes, then in a more corporal form, presented as a hulking musculature without skin, which brought to mind the skinless version of Frank from the original Hellraiser (1987) film, but amped up on steroids. His final version looks a bit like Apocalypse from Marvel's the X-Men comics mixed with Darkseid from DC comics, a hulking stony-skinned exterior with red glowing eyes and mouth, it's practically achieved by a man in a body suit. He's a vampire of sorts, and though it's not fully explained in the film, he felt extra-dimensional or alien in nature, capable of sucking the life-essence from his victims in a way that pre-figured Lifeforce (1986), draining their life essence and leaving behind charred husks.
A lot of the visual FX on this film are quite dazzling, the smoke-wrangling they did is uneven but the initial image of the swirling smoke-monster was fantastic. The laser-light shows that pop-up throughout the film are the most uneven and a bit over-used. I'm split on it, I love they way some of it works and then I feel it's overused, particularly at the end when it's just done to death. Some of the reliance on generic light effects might be the production covering for some unfinished visual FX work that was not finished by the legendary Wally Veevers (2001: A Space Odyssey) who died a few weeks into post-production .
Audio/Video: The Keep (1983) arrives on DVD (inexplicably) for the first time from Australia's Via Vision Entertainment, on license from Paramount Pictures. The film is framed in the original intended 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio, looking at first bluish like an older non-HD master right from the get-go. The red lettering of the title card and opening credits sequence are red and pretty hairy-looking, the opening image of the Nazi unit travelling through the Carpathian Mountains is a bit soft looking, while other shots are more defined and crisp, it's an uneven presentation. The blacks levels are a bit on the anemic side with occasional black crush, leaning more grayish in spots. The film looks a bit subdued in regards to use of color, looking muted with occasional red and greens shining through when called upon, but it's a drab looking color palette by design. Clarity and depth wax and wane throughout, with the scenes Molasar in it's smoke-monster incarnation looking quite good, but the seemingly ancient video master struggles to resolve the numerous fog and smoke drenched interiors. All things considered it's not too bad, Via Vision are working with older standard-def elements provided by Paramount so it is what it is.
Audio comes by way of English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo without any subtitle options. The ethereal Tangerine Dream score sounds good, but the stereo track carries with it some noticeable hiss in the quieter moments and volume level fluctuations are noticeable with some ugly muddier sounding moments that hinder it.
The only extra on the disc is a trailer for the film which definitely sends the message that Paramount had no idea how to market this strange film. If you scour YouTube you can find the alternate ending, which accompanied later broadcast TV airings of the film, as well as a vintage EPK-style behind-the-scenes featurette. I definitely want to see a full-on restored HD version of the director's 210-min cut of this film with loads of extras, but for now I am content to finally have it on a legit physical disc, even if it's DVD-only. Here's hoping this modest first-out-of-the-gate release opens up the floodgate and we see a brand new restoration of all three cuts of the film on 4K Ultra HD at some point.
The single-disc release comes housed in a clear DVD keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring the original illustrated movie poster, the reversible side is the same artwork without the unsightly ratings logo. The disc itself is just a black black background with a white-lettering movie title. The spine has some nice shelf appeal, the logo displayed in the violet and blue hues of the artwork, standing out in big fat lettering on the spine long with and image of Molasar's face, it stands out nicely sitting there on the shelf.
Special Features:
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
