The Keep (1983)

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1. 

   marlarkey

   Love Tangerine Dream :) 10 years 1 month ago
2. 

   Siskoid

   An odd film for Michael Mann to be attached to, The Keep (based on F. Paul Wilson's novel) is about Nazis who hole up in an old fortress in the wilds of Romania and accidentally unleash an evil that could destroy the world. In other words, it's a stand-in for for the Third Reich, even if it's part of that satisfying subgenre where Nazis get massacred by supernatural forces (well, the Reich didn't survive the war). As you might expect from Mann, it's visually arresting, even if the smoke machine is working overtime, covering some scenes not with atmosphere so much as murky haze, and he overuses the slow motion. Tangerine Dream provides the music, and after several "horror" scores from them in the past week, I'm ready to call it: I don't think I'm a fan. The airy synths just don't evoke fear or even dread to me. A kind of neo-Gothic awe, maybe, but it's counter to what I want to be feeling. Surprisingly, a young(er) Ian McKellan turns out to be the hero here, though he's saddled with a rough American accent (which is how they have the Romanians speak, as opposed to the accented Germans). The creature is pretty interesting when it's covered in roiling smoke (how'd they do that?), but progressively turns into a lumbering man in a rubber suit. And what do we make of the mysterious "guardian" who stand between the demon and our world? Probably made sense in the book, but the movie doesn't quite get us there, possibly because it was hacked up by the studio (which it was). So you see, for every interesting thing in The Keep, there's something that drains it of its power. You might enjoy as a cult item, or you might think it an irredeemable mess. 1 year 6 months ago
3. 

   Torgo

   Lingering, but with fantastic setting and soundtrack. You'll wish Michael Mann would have done more with this. 8 years 7 months ago

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