PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
The Keep (1983)

The Keep (1983) (NTSC)

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Released 4-Mar-2020

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Drama/Horror Theatrical Trailer
Reversible Cover
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 1983
Running Time 95:41
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 1,2,3,4,5,6 Directed By Michael Mann
Studio
Distributor

ViaVision
Starring Scott Glenn
Jurgen Prochnow
Alberta Watson
Ian McKellen
Gabriel Byrne
Morgan Sheppard
Robert Prosky
Case Amaray-Transparent
RPI ? Music Tangerine Dream


Video (NTSC) Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

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Plot Synopsis

     In 1941 a German army squad led by Captain Woermann (Jurgen Prochnow) arrives at a small village in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania to garrison the keep at the pass. The keep is large and gloomy, and Woermann quickly realises that the walls have been designed and built not to keep something out, but to keep something in! The keep also has crosses embedded in the walls that the caretaker Alexandru (Morgan Sheppard) warns them never, never to touch. Like in all horror stories, the admonishment is ignored by the soldiers who by their actions release something sinister into the keep that starts to kill soldiers in gruesome ways. Woermann asks for his squad to be reassigned, but instead an SS squad led by Major Kaempffer (Gabriel Byrne) arrives and, believing partisans are responsible for the deaths, start to shoot villagers and take others hostage.

     However, the deaths continue and suddenly strange writing in an unknown language appears on a wall. The village priest Father Fonescu (Robert Prosky) tells Kaempffer that the writing can be deciphered by Dr Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen) who used to live in the village but who as a Jew is now in a German concentration camp with his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson). Kaempffer gets them brought to the village. Elsewhere, in Greece, Glaeken (Scott Glenn), a man with mysterious powers whose reflection does not appear in mirrors, senses the events occurring in the keep and sets off for Romania. For indeed something monstrous and evil has been awakened in the keep. Some will help the creature, some oppose it and many will die in the attempt to stop even more evil escaping into a world already at war.

     The Keep by screenwriter / director Michael Mann is based upon the novel by F. Paul Wilson; Wilson apparently hated the film as did Mann who disowned it! The Keep was only Mann’s second feature film following the well-received Thief (1981) which starred James Caan and was in many ways a trial run for Mann’s fabulous Heat (1995). The Keep is a very different beast from those crime thrillers; it is a supernatural gothic horror / thriller set in WW2, quite unlike anything Mann had, or would, do. Mann’s original cut of The Keep ran for 210 minutes; Paramount took the film from him and recut it to 96 minutes for theatrical release. The result is a confusing mess that was a commercial and artistic disappointment.

     The butchering of the film did no favours to the coherence of the plot or to the character development of an impressive cast including Jurgen Prochnow (following his performance in Das Boot (1981)), Gabriel Byrne, later in The Usual Suspects (1995) and still going strong today, and everyone’s favourite Gandalf Sir Ian McKellen, although his performance in The Keep, or what is left of his performance, is rather mixed to say the least. But what remains, in addition to a sex scene including some chunky Christian symbolism, symbolism later enhanced by the choral Mass for Four Voices by Thomas Tallis on the soundtrack, is some exquisite widescreen photography by cinematographer Alex Thomson, Oscar nominated a few years previously for John Boorman’s underrated retelling of the King Arthur legends Excalibur (1981), in which, incidentally, Gabriel Byrne had a role. Simply put, the widescreen images in The Keep of the mountain village and the large gloomy keep, involving filtered streams of light, smoke and darkness, are stunning.

     Less successful are the primitive special effects and the score. The Keep was made in 1983 prior to CGI. For most of the film the creature consists of swirling smoke and / or flashing lights; the full reveal does not come until around the hour mark when we get an underwhelming man in a suit with kind of exposed red veins. Disappointing, but with the impressive smoke and light effects it sort of works and is what one might expect from the period. The music by the electronic avant-garde German collective Tangerine Dream, who had also scored Thief, divided the critics. In some scenes it is eerie, otherworldly and effective, together with the widescreen images creating an unsettling atmosphere; other times, however, it becomes intrusive and undercuts the atmosphere created by the visuals.

     There have been alternative versions of The Keep around, including TV versions that changed the downbeat ending of the film. For some details of these other versions see the alternative versions tab in the IMDb. This DVD of The Keep is the original theatrical version.

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Transfer Quality

Video

     The Keep is presented in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, in NTSC and 16x9 enhanced.

     The print does not start out well – the red text on blue background is hard to read and includes colour bleeding and there is a vertical scratch evident. Thereafter, however, it settles down; the colours are natural and although some wide shots are softish there is strong detail in close-ups including of Prochnow’s pockmarked face. The flashing lights and backlit actors in some scenes result in a lack of detail but, as noted in the review, the widescreen visuals by cinematographer Alex Thomson incorporating images of the mountain village and the dark keep, including filtered streams of light, smoke and darkness, are stunning. Blacks are solid, skin tones fine, brightness and contrast consistent and, other than as noted above, scratches and marks are not present. All in all, this was a good looking presentation of the film.

     No subtitles are provided.

     The layer change at 48:11 resulted in a slight pause during a scene change.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The audio is English Dolby Digital 2.0, surround encoded.

     The effects, including the rumble of creature effects, screams, the wind and gunshots, are loud and have some depth while the surround encoding results in some effects in the rears such as the wind and the score. There was also some subwoofer activity supporting the roar of the creature effects. The biggest issue was the audio level of the dialogue; sometimes it was fine but at other times it drops off markedly to almost nothing, requiring an adjustment of the sound levels.

     The score by Tangerine Dream was intrusive on occasion and does tend to date the film.

     There are some lip synchronisation issues; lines may have been rerecorded when the film was cut.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Theatrical Trailer (2:13)

     The trailer includes scenes that are not in the theatrical release.

Reversible Cover

     The cover without the ratings logo.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

     The Keep was released on DVD a few years ago, a release that buyers on Amazon slammed as very, very poor, a port from a VHS tape. This current release, which so far is only available here, is a vast improvement.

Summary

     Michael Mann has some fabulous films on his CV with The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and Heat (1995) right up there. The Keep, his second feature film, was taken from him by Paramount and recut for theatrical release. The film failed at the box office and disappeared from sight, although achieving some cult status. This DVD release is still the cut version (one doubts if the original still even exists) but it is in the correct aspect ratio, the visuals are stunning and at least one can glimpse Mann’s vision. An oddity, but fans will find a lot to enjoy.

     The video and the audio, except for the dialogue levels, are good. A trailer is the only extra.

     The Keep was supplied for review by ViaVision Entertainment. Check out their Facebook page for the latest releases, giveaways, deals and more.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ray Nyland (the bio is the thing)
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Review Equipment
DVDSony BDP-S580, using HDMI output
DisplayLG 55inch HD LCD. This display device has not been calibrated. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderNAD T737. This audio decoder/receiver has not been calibrated.
AmplificationNAD T737
SpeakersStudio Acoustics 5.1

Other Reviews NONE