During WWII, Nazi soldiers decide to defend a Romanian mountain pass. As part of their plan, they make their headquarters in a nearby fortress. Unfortunately, two sentries get greedy, and in their search for the treasures that the fortress contains, they allow an ancient evil spirit to be released from its tomb. While the Germans procure the services of an aged, ailing Jewish historian (Sir Ian McKellen, the "X-Men" franchise), their humane, level-headed officer Woermann (Jurgen Prochnow, "Das Boot") butts heads with his brutish young associate Kaempffer (Gabriel Byrne, "Miller's Crossing") over methodology, and a strange mystery man named Glaeken (Scott Glenn, "The Silence of the Lambs") is drawn to The Keep to fulfill some sort of mission.Michael Mann ("Heat", "Manhunter"), here following up his smash debut "Thief", also adapts the novel by F. Paul Wilson. One can see that this could have been interesting; he had good intentions and definitely did his research. Unfortunately, his squabbles with the producers & studio (Paramount) resulted in his ultimately disowning the film, since he was never able to properly realize his vision.As it is, this is a compelling, appropriately ethereal horror-fantasy story, but in this 96 minute long incarnation, it comes across as muddled and not fleshed-out enough. In addition, the inevitable confrontation between Glaeken and the imposing monster Molasar (played by Michael Carter of "An American Werewolf in London") is much too rushed and cheesy, robbing us of complete satisfaction.Still, there's a fair bit to respect here. Production design (by John Box), cinematography (by Alex Thomson), and the music (by Tangerine Dream) are all excellent. The film is shot through with some absolutely overwhelming gloomy atmosphere, and is quite sombre, with no real humour to speak of.It's the efforts of a superior cast that help to make "The Keep" work as well as it does. Prochnow and Byrne, in particular, have one great scene together. Also starring are Canadian beauty Alberta Watson ("The Soldier"), the late, great character actor Robert Prosky (the gangster in Manns' "Thief"), William Morgan Sheppard ("Wild at Heart"), Wolf Kahler ("Raiders of the Lost Ark"), and Rosalie Crutchley ("The Haunting" '63). Glenn has a commanding presence, but with so little to work with, his hero character doesn't leave that much of an impression.I think we can chalk this up as a "nice try, but no cigar" effort, and only wonder about what might have been, had there been no interference.Six out of 10.

Its hard to rate a movie like this. The environments, photography, creature body suits and effects, Tangerine Dream soundtrack, and Jurgen Prochnow were fantastic. Unfortunately it was badly maimed when it was cut in half to be of normal theater running time, so characters and relationships change so suddenly and inexplicably as to be completely absurd, and most viewers didn't know this. And, frankly, some of the actors, while being good sports and well-intentioned, were pretty bad hams. So if you take the really good, the really bad, and the isolated knowledge that the movie was forcibly butchered by studio requirements you end up with a movie that some people love, some people hate.... a cult classic. Sadly I don't think it was ever even released in the U.S. on DVD??? For many years I wish I had a way to contact Michael Mann and ask him if he has the other half of the movie or if the studio kept it buried somewhere, I would dearly love to see the rest of it, even if its just raw footage. "Where am I from? I am..... from you!".

At times, THE KEEP is very atmospheric, foreboding and suspenseful, with solid acting by Ian McKellen and Jurgen Prochnow. Unfortunately, THE KEEP was a troubled production (its story should emerge in a KEEP documentary to be released in 2017). In short, weather conditions were difficult, Mann kept re-visualizing the film (especially its primary villain) during production, and worst of all, his head Effects expert, Wally Veevers, died during early post-production, leaving a number of key effect scenes unfinished. Paramount then refused further production monies, time for proper sound mixing, and edited the rough film's 210 minutes down to a "theater-friendly" 96 minutes, resulting in numerous plot holes. Paramount's brief theater release was followed by home video on VHS, but in part due to rights issues over the music (a moody yet haunting score by Tangerine Dream) has kept THE KEEP from an official Paramount DVD release. In recent interviews (also part of the upcoming documentary), Michael Mann showed little interest in revitalizing this film.

So many people here have come to this movie with modern eyes. Of course the SFX are going to look dated it was made 32 years ago! However, the movie is carried along (for the most part) by the visuals and the excellent (if mixed somewhat loudly) Tangerine Dream soundtrack.The story does seem to jump evidencing the loss of footage at some point and at someone's behest...I hope to see a Directors Cut one day if the "issues" with who/whatever has them ever get sorted. A new sound mix would be excellent to add more dynamic range to the audio, it seems a touch over compressed as was the style in the 80's.An unsettling movie somewhat let down by a chain of events starting with the death of the SFX head Wally Veevers. Add in some studio meddling and a whole bunch of other wrangling with Tangerine Dream and it's evident the movie isn't what it could have been.As for Paul F Wilson's opinion it's moot, as an author will very rarely think any adaptation lives up to what he envisioned.**The version from Netflix is currently the best quality anywhere in the wild**