Review of The Keep (1983) by Van R — 29 Dec 2009
This creepy supernatural saga about good versus evil qualifies as the most unusual movie from director Michael Mann who is best known for movies like HEAT, PUBLIC ENEMIES, THE INSIDER, THIEF, COLLATERAL, THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, MANHUNTER and the TV shows MIAMI VICE and CRIME STORY.
In 1943, the German Army occupies an ancient keep on the Romanian border with many silver crosses embedded in the walls. A number of German soldiers start dying. Two are brutally killed when they remove a silver cross from the wall and discover a concealed passage way.
The one who crawls into the passage way is cut in two. The commanding German Army officer Captain Klaus Woermann (Jurgen Prochnow of DAS BOOT) is the humane German officer who does not condone the murderous methods of Gestapo officer Major Kaempffer(Gabriel Byrne of THE USUAL SUSPECTS) who thinks he can execute people by firing squad in the village to stop the mysterious deaths of German personnel in the keep.
Kaempffer summons an elderly doctor, Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen of X-MEN), to translate the inscriptions on the walls that he believes were written by partisans. Initially, Cuza is confined to a wheel chair and cannot do anything for himself.
Kaempffer uses his power to pull Dr. Cuza and his lovely daughter Eva (Alberta Watson of HACKERS) are brought to the keep. Meanwhile, Scott Glenn plays an enigmatic stranger on a motorcycle named Glaeken Trismaegatus who comes to the keep to prevent the monster from getting out.
The monster stands between 8 and 10 feet tall, looks like a golem, and has blazing cinder-red eyes. He cloaks himself in clouds of smoke and kills two Gestapo soldier when they try to rape Eva. These two die when their faces explode like china dolls.
The golem visits Dr. Cuza and restores the use of his legs. The golem explains that he cannot wipe out the Gestapo unless Dr. Cuza takes a talisman from the keep that will effectively free him. The Scott Glenn character who turns green when the Gestapo troops shoot him struggles to convince Dr.
Cuza of the error of his ways. Meantime, an angry Kaempffer murders Woermann. The Western German rock group Tangerine Dream provides an atmospheric soundtrack and the photography and special effects are far above average.
Mann derived his screenplay from a bestselling novel that New Jersey doctor F. Paul Wilson wrote the novel in 1981.
This review of The Keep (1983) was written by Van R on 29 Dec 2009.
The Keep has generally received mixed reviews.
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