“How many times in this Keep have you wet your bed?”

ZombieDog’s rating: Amazingly full of what could have been

ZombieDog’s review: There is a methodology that allows for movies to be told. In general, the story itself takes place in three acts, hopefully with visuals that accompany the dialogue and sound ultimately go to making a coherent film. To be sure, there are happy missteps such as Ed Woods’ Plan 9 from Outer Space which basically set the standard for both cult and B-movies alike, and unhappy failures, such as 2018’s Future World (*cough* tax write off). Then we have today’s movie, which Ian McKellen (Gandalf) called his worst filmmaking experience of all time.

The Keep was directed by Michael Mann, who is not a second-rate director by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he has directed some amazingly powerful films such as Thief, Heat, and Collateral to name just a few of his heavy-hitting films. However, in the middle of a brilliant career, Mann directed what I can only call a magnificent catastrophe.

Adapted from a 1981 book by F. Paul Wilson, The Keep is a World War II horror movie about a fortress that is not what it seems. The movie starts off with a division of German soldiers approaching a village with a keep that they could use as a defensive position. It’s a small village and mostly comprised of farmers and noncombatants. As the Nazis go about their task of securing the keep, they find that details don’t match up to their expectations. From outward appearances the place resembles a castle, yet as they get inside, they discover that the structure itself is completely opposite of what it should be. The bricks should be facing outward to repel invaders, but instead they’re facing inwards — which would imply they’re holding something in. In addition, crosses made of nickel, a worthless metal, are embedded around the outsides of the walls and all throughout the building.

Adding to the confusion is the keep’s caretaker, who rattles off a strange history of this place. This is the classic “don’t stay in that old mansion!” haunted house scenario, although the caretaker says that nobody ever has died there and that anybody who leaves does so of their own free will. He’s clearly hiding something, though, and strongly advises the soldiers to move on. Of course, the Nazi commander interprets this as a threat and lets the caretaker know that nothing is going to scare them away.

It doesn’t take long before soldiers start dying in particularly gruesome ways. The leaders don’t take kindly to their men being picked off at night, so they round up the young men of the town, put them up against the wall, and kill them. Of course, this does absolutely nothing to stave off the killings. Adding to the confusion, they discover indecipherable writing on the wall which is surmised to be some ancient language that can only be translated by a local Jewish historian.

Ian McKellen plays this Dr. Theodore Cuza, a professor of medieval history who made a study of the keep. As Cuza arrives with his daughter, the monster in the keep makes himself known to him and proposes an alliance to smash the German army and enjoy untold retribution for the Holocaust.

The Keep is a simple good-vs-evil tale with ups and downs along the way. What’s more interesting is the making of the film itself. While Michael Mann is an individual of amazing talent, he was hobbled by intense studio interference. The first cut of the film was a whopping 210 minutes long (3 ½ hours)! When shown to the executives, they couldn’t possibly conceive of an audience wanting to sit there endure a drawn-out complex horror saga. In their questionable wisdom, the studio heads cut it down to a trim 90 minutes — and in the process excising every plot point, character development, and foundational aspects.

As I already said, The Keep is a catastrophe, yet is a brilliant catastrophe. It has a wonderful atmospheric dreamlike quality that pulls us into the world, and the score by Tangerine Dream totally works.

Okay so is this movie good? This is a difficult question to answer mostly because I know how biased I am. I love The Keep and have loved it since the ’80s. It is a flawed work and there will be parts of the films where you have no idea what’s going on because of the huge cuts. It’s also hard to find a decent version of it. Amazon says they have a Blu-ray release although it doesn’t appear to be an actual remastering using the film negative. I have three versions of this film, and the one that I watched for this review was the Grindhouse version. With this, it looks like they were able to upscale the video and deal with some of the sound issues. They added that Grindhouse effect and it kinda works for the movie.

There were some arguments about who owns the rights to it, with some speculating that it would be better off to leave well enough alone. What’s more, I couldn’t find it in my research, but I believe the original film negative was destroyed or is in some cave guarded by a dragon. Either way it would appear that no official effort will be made to rescue the film or preserve it.

In the end though it’s awesome! Pick a stormy night, shut off all the lights, let the couch pull you in, and enjoy what could have been.