The Keep

• Written and Directed by Michael Mann
• December 16, 1983 (US)
• Based on the 1981 novel of The Keep by F. Paul Wilson

A group of Nazi soldiers unleash a dark supernatural being after commandeering an ancient stone fortress in the Carpathian Mountains. Always those darn Nazis…

I was quite young when I first came across The Keep. How young? I watched it on a video cassette rented from a privately owned video store. Having just watched for again for the first time in many years I can certainly see what caused it to stick with me all this time. The European setting. The era of World War II. A certain style evocative of the early Full Moon Entertainment movies. All under the guiding hand of Michael Mann.

Michael Mann gives a certain feel to all his work and for me it absolutely works in this film. You know when you’re watching something directed by him or created by him. It’s in the dialogue and the look and the vibe. He is if nothing else unique in what he ultimately produces.

Yet The Keep failed at the box office and to this day it only has a small yet dedicated following. There is something there that myself and other fans see but never comes out fully because so much is gone. Originally around three hours, Paramount reportedly cut the runtime of the film to half by the time of release. You notice some of those cuts when the music doesn’t quite flow neatly and there are distinct time jumps. You can’t cut out half of a movie and expect it to be high-quality. The sad part is what remains indicates something that was possibly wonderful.

We open immediately on an isolated village and are rather swiftly introduced to two Nazis that clash for various reasons. One takes a significantly more heavy-handed approach to dealing with strange events. Immediately an uncertain situation gains a bit of instability.

While Sturmbannführer Erich Kaempffer (Gabriel Byrne) is undeniably evil, Captain Klaus Woermann (Jürgen Prochnow) is a little more sophisticated. He’s on the then winning side (the Nazis were doing well in the beginning) but he’s not reveling in doing bad things. He even has sympathy for the villagers that he is interacting with where stationed and perhaps a bit more so by the time Kaempffer shows up. Kaempffer and Woermann while on the same side to present opposing philosophies.

Whatever is going on between Kaempffer and Woermann looks like it was meant to be much more complex than what we ultimately got. They have some good moments together. Their climactic dialogue implies a distinctly more serious antagonism between the two. But without the missing footage we can never know unless it’s discovered somewhere if that actually was the case.

There’s a lot of smoke in The Keep that pours into places rather than out. A frequently used special effect in the movie is reversing the footage. A simple yet effective tactic when executed appropriately. Mann combines it with some intriguing music by Tangerine Dream which helps to sell the presentation but also converts the film into something of a dark fairytale. It becomes heavy on the supernatural and mild on the fright.

Tangerine Dream was on a bit of a high during the 80s. Their music popped up in a lot more films than I thought it did. In my humble opinion their music for Legend was far as superior to the other music and makes it a fantastic film. Their work on such films as Sorcerer, Thief, Risky Business, Firestarter, and Near Dark contributed as much to their success or staying power as did the stories and performances. The music of The Keep combined with Mann’s direction and the cinematography makes this at times an artistic music video.

Scott Glenn as Glaeken Trismegestus (a name never uttered in the film) shows up. The character has a clear connection to the Keep but whatever that is gets lost as are some of his actions that helped shed light on his character’s motivations. You will have no idea what Scott Glenn’s character’s connection precisely is with the Keep. Or even his character’s name. I found out by looking it up! Was he some type of guardian? Did he imprison the evil Radu Molasar (Michael Carter) in the Keep? If not then who did?

Ian McKellen in some disturbingly accurate aging makeup plays Dr. Theodore Cuza who is an man from the local village that was in a concentration camp before being removed due to his knowledge of the structure. His motivations are very clear for everything he does but his daughter is a different matter. In the context of what we see his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson) meets Scott Glenn and decides to sleep with him within seconds. He doesn’t even really seduce her. There is no crappy romance. She comes off as easy or he as rapey depending on if you think he used magic or not.

The costuming and the sparse nature of the main setting generates a feel of isolation and unease. There is evil all around and nobody can escape. There’s just something entertaining and otherworldly about this. Perhaps because the original cut was a good movie and there’s enough goodness left that you can get past many but not all issues. Or an otherworldly monster killing Nazis and being an even bigger evil than them is just that good of a hook. 

There’s a dream like quality and at points even a dark beauty about this. It’s most certainly a dark fantasy rather than a horror film and what angers me the most is that there is so much here that should have led to a classic. It almost all comes together in a way that should’ve put it right up there with, the word the likes of Excalibur or even Legend but because of studio interference it narratively jumps around or even nonsensical because development got tossed into the trashcan. Paramount did not understand the film.

I detected hints of a film that was more than a unique WWII story. There are moments that sound like they were trying to go into faith versus atheism. Again hints of more than what we got. It just drops off or the discussion which could’ve been continued later never gets continued later.

What gets me about this and other films with an ancient imprisoned evil is why was this ultimate evil only now destroyed? Why wasn’t it taken care of whenever it was imprisoned? Scott Glenn has been around for some time. Either as long as the Keep has existed or before that yet only now destroyed the villain. Questions, questions…

Because of studio interference The Keep is much less than it could’ve been. It’s still entertaining with something about it that hooks you. This is a Cult Film that is available on YouTube or a physical release if you find a copy. It’s worth looking at though I do advise checking out some of the extraneous material to understand the missing elements. That will help you get past any questions.