The Keep (film)
Encyclopedia
The Keep is a 1983 horror film
directed by Michael Mann
and starring Scott Glenn
, Gabriel Byrne
, Jürgen Prochnow
, Alberta Watson
and Ian McKellen
. It was released by Paramount Pictures
. The story is based on the F. Paul Wilson
novel of the same name, published in 1981 (1982 in the United Kingdom).
Wilson has expressed his distaste for the film version publicly, writing in the short story collection The Barren (and Others) that it is, “Visually intriguing, but otherwise utterly incomprehensible.”
Despite being a critical and commercial failure, it retained a cult following
, mostly due to the film’s music score by Tangerine Dream
and the film’s mixture of Gothic horror
and World War II
elements.
A board game based on the film was designed by James D. Griffin and published by Mayfair Games
.
(the “Keep” of the title) in WWII Romania
within which lies entrapped a dangerous and malevolent entity
named Radu Molasar. When the German Army occupies the castle to control the Dinu Mountain Pass, Molasar is unwittingly unleashed from deep within the innermost recesses of the citadel by a pair of treasure-seeking soldiers and he consumes their life energy. A detachment of Einsatzkommando
s then arrives to deal with what is thought to be partisan
activity. The Einsatzkommandos' actions only fuel the demon's hunger for bloodshed and soon more troops begin to die in mysterious, gruesome ways.
At the instigation of the local priest, the Germans retrieve a Jewish historian, Professor Cuza, from a death camp to decipher a mysterious message emblazoned on a wall of the keep. The demonic and, at this point, cloudlike Molasar saves the professor's daughter, Eva Cuza, from a sexual assault by two Einsatzkommandos and then enlists the aid of her grateful father to escape from the Keep. Cuza is also cured of his debilitating scleroderma
by the touch of Molasar and therefore becomes doubly indebted to the malevolent entity. A mysterious stranger arrives to foil this plan, however. After a misguided and unsuccessful attempt by the professor to have the stranger stopped, the two supernatural beings engage in a confrontation in which the demon is weakened and drawn back into the innermost recesses, and the hero inevitably finds himself pulled in as well, his fate linked with the demon that was his destined foe to guard from ever escaping the Keep. At this point, the studio version of the film comes to an end.
In the extended version of the film, the otherworldly stranger falls for a long time through the abyss of the keep’s lower caves, waking up later on the lowest level of the keep. He notices he can see his reflection in a puddle of water, showing that - presumably due to the death of the demon with whom he was mystically linked - he has become an ordinary mortal man, instead of dying as he had predicted. He is identified by Eva Cuza as Glaeken "Trismegistus" (Greek for "Thrice Greatest") in an easily-overlooked line (the demon too is named in the scene). After his fall, Eva comes to him, and he is now free to live out the rest of his natural span with the woman who rescued him.
was by Tangerine Dream
. Although the soundtrack was eventually released in 1997, out of 16 tracks only three actually appeared in the film.
theatrically in the United States by Paramount Pictures
on December 16, 1983. It grossed $4,218,594 million at the domestic box office.
The film was released on laserdisc
and VHS
by Paramount Home Video. As of 2011, the film has not been officially released on DVD
in any country, although it is currently available for streaming with Netflix
.
Lionsgate has not announced The Keep on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Michael Mann
Michael Mann (film director)
Michael Kenneth Mann is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. For his work, he has received nominations from international organizations and juries, including those at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Cannes and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
and starring Scott Glenn
Scott Glenn
Theodore Scott Glenn is an American actor. His roles have included Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy , astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff ,Emmett in Silverado , Commander Bart Mancuso in The Hunt for Red October , Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs and The Wise Man in Sucker Punch -Early...
, Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
, Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...
, Alberta Watson
Alberta Watson
Faith Susan Alberta Watson , known professionally as Alberta Watson, is a Canadian movie and television series actress.-Early life:...
and Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
. It was released by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. The story is based on the F. Paul Wilson
F. Paul Wilson
Francis Paul Wilson is an American author, primarily in the science fiction and horror genres. His debut novel was Healer . Wilson is also a part-time practicing family physician. He made his first sales in 1970 to Analog while still in medical school , and continued to write science fiction...
novel of the same name, published in 1981 (1982 in the United Kingdom).
Wilson has expressed his distaste for the film version publicly, writing in the short story collection The Barren (and Others) that it is, “Visually intriguing, but otherwise utterly incomprehensible.”
Despite being a critical and commercial failure, it retained a cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
, mostly due to the film’s music score by Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
and the film’s mixture of Gothic horror
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
elements.
A board game based on the film was designed by James D. Griffin and published by Mayfair Games
Mayfair Games
Mayfair Games is a publisher of board, card, and roleplaying games. They also license German-style board games and publish them in English throughout the world...
.
Plot
The film focuses on a deserted citadelCitadel
A citadel is a fortress for protecting a town, sometimes incorporating a castle. The term derives from the same Latin root as the word "city", civis, meaning citizen....
(the “Keep” of the title) in WWII Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
within which lies entrapped a dangerous and malevolent entity
Entity
An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, although it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate.An entity could be viewed as a set...
named Radu Molasar. When the German Army occupies the castle to control the Dinu Mountain Pass, Molasar is unwittingly unleashed from deep within the innermost recesses of the citadel by a pair of treasure-seeking soldiers and he consumes their life energy. A detachment of Einsatzkommando
Einsatzkommando
During World War II, the Nazi German Einsatzkommandos were a sub-group of five Einsatzgruppen mobile killing squads—up to 3,000 men each—usually composed of 500-1,000 functionaries of the SS and Gestapo, whose mission was to kill Jews, Romani, communists and the NKVD collaborators in the captured...
s then arrives to deal with what is thought to be partisan
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
activity. The Einsatzkommandos' actions only fuel the demon's hunger for bloodshed and soon more troops begin to die in mysterious, gruesome ways.
At the instigation of the local priest, the Germans retrieve a Jewish historian, Professor Cuza, from a death camp to decipher a mysterious message emblazoned on a wall of the keep. The demonic and, at this point, cloudlike Molasar saves the professor's daughter, Eva Cuza, from a sexual assault by two Einsatzkommandos and then enlists the aid of her grateful father to escape from the Keep. Cuza is also cured of his debilitating scleroderma
Scleroderma
Systemic sclerosis or systemic scleroderma is a systemic autoimmune disease or systemic connective tissue disease that is a subtype of scleroderma.-Skin symptoms:...
by the touch of Molasar and therefore becomes doubly indebted to the malevolent entity. A mysterious stranger arrives to foil this plan, however. After a misguided and unsuccessful attempt by the professor to have the stranger stopped, the two supernatural beings engage in a confrontation in which the demon is weakened and drawn back into the innermost recesses, and the hero inevitably finds himself pulled in as well, his fate linked with the demon that was his destined foe to guard from ever escaping the Keep. At this point, the studio version of the film comes to an end.
In the extended version of the film, the otherworldly stranger falls for a long time through the abyss of the keep’s lower caves, waking up later on the lowest level of the keep. He notices he can see his reflection in a puddle of water, showing that - presumably due to the death of the demon with whom he was mystically linked - he has become an ordinary mortal man, instead of dying as he had predicted. He is identified by Eva Cuza as Glaeken "Trismegistus" (Greek for "Thrice Greatest") in an easily-overlooked line (the demon too is named in the scene). After his fall, Eva comes to him, and he is now free to live out the rest of his natural span with the woman who rescued him.
Cast
- Scott GlennScott GlennTheodore Scott Glenn is an American actor. His roles have included Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy , astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff ,Emmett in Silverado , Commander Bart Mancuso in The Hunt for Red October , Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs and The Wise Man in Sucker Punch -Early...
as Glaeken Trismegestus - Alberta WatsonAlberta WatsonFaith Susan Alberta Watson , known professionally as Alberta Watson, is a Canadian movie and television series actress.-Early life:...
as Eva Cuza - Jürgen ProchnowJürgen ProchnowJürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...
as Captain Klaus Woermann - Robert ProskyRobert ProskyRobert Prosky was an American stage, film, and television actor.-Life and career:Prosky, a Polish American, was born Robert Joseph Porzuczek in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Helen and Joseph Porzuczek. His father was a grocer and butcher...
as Father Fonescu - Gabriel ByrneGabriel ByrneGabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...
as SDSicherheitsdienstSicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
Officer SturmbannführerSturmbannführerSturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party equivalent to major, used both in the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel...
Eric Kaempffer - Ian McKellenIan McKellenSir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
as Dr. Theodore Cuza - Morgan Sheppard as Alexandru
- Royston TicknerRoyston TicknerRoyston Tickner was a British actor.He was born in Leicester and trained as an actor at Scarborough repertory theatre...
as Tomescu - Michael Carter as Radu Molasar
- Bruce PayneBruce PayneBruce Martyn Payne is an award winning English character actor and producer and was a member of the 1980's Brit Pack. Although he is best known for his villainous roles, Bruce Payne has played characters across the spectrum...
as Border Guard
The score
The theme and incidental musicIncidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
was by Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...
. Although the soundtrack was eventually released in 1997, out of 16 tracks only three actually appeared in the film.
Release
The film was given a limited releaseLimited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
theatrically in the United States by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
on December 16, 1983. It grossed $4,218,594 million at the domestic box office.
The film was released on laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
and VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
by Paramount Home Video. As of 2011, the film has not been officially released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in any country, although it is currently available for streaming with Netflix
Netflix
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...
.
Lionsgate has not announced The Keep on DVD and Blu-Ray.