FerrariandHeatdirectorMichael Mann’s been notoriously tightlipped about his second feature,The Keep. The 1983 fantasy-horror moviesuffered extensive cutsby the studio which undermined the director’s psychedelic approach to amovie about Nazisrelying on the expertise of a Jewish historian to save themselves from destruction. Looking back, it’s such an outlier in Mann’s filmography, which is so defined by neo-noir crime thrillers about professional men. The Keep has largely been forgotten, though remains a compelling experience because of the boldness of its vision.
Nazis are forced to turn to a Jewish historian for help in battling the ancient demon they have inadvertently freed from its prison.
What Is Michael Mann’s ‘The Keep’ About?
Adapted from a novel byF. Paul Wilson,The Keeptakes place in a Romanian village in 1941. A unit of Nazis arrive, led by Captain Klaus Woermann (Jürgen Prochnow), and they camp inside a mysterious stone keep, against the warnings of locals.Already, this is an unusual setup for Michael Mann.Who are the morally ambiguous men here to do a job because it’s in their nature? Nazis! And when the creature or evil force hidden by the keep is unleashed, who’s going to care when it recreates the ending ofRaiders of the Lost Ark?
In fact, however reasonable or even sympathetic Woermann is, he’s replaced in the spotlight by a Jewish professor, Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen) and his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson), whose lead role is challenged by the arrival of Glaeken (Scott Glenn), a man with magical abilities. In total, it’s rumored that the studio trimmed about 100 minutes fromThe Keep, a feature-length excision that disrupts whatever connective tissue these characters had, and mangles the pacing. The opening scene must have gone untouched, as thearrival of the Nazi convoy is so prolonged, aided by slow-motion and the electronic score byTangerine Dream. It’s spacey and dreamlike, and entirely without subjectivity. Certainly not Woermann’s, despite the punctuation of close-ups on his eye. What is presented as a protagonist problem turns out to be an interest in style over just about everything else.
When the Nazisinevitably summon the keep’s great evil, it’s a sequence of suspense that forfeits the discipline of tension for the hallmarks of an ’80s power ballad music video. The booming synthetic soundtrack kicks on as one soldier, in silhouette and slow-motion, runs toward a harsh blue light animated by fog. Who are these guys? The audience learns the names but little else, aside from their fatal greed.The keep is decorated by 108 silver crosses(with 108 being a holy number in Hinduism and Buddhism) so these soldiers want to steal them. Cue the overdramatic lighting and sound. This is a singular moment, cleaved from its context. The scene is directed with such an inappropriate fervor that it becomes absorbing, but there’s no suggestion of purpose. The subsequentdeaths of these Nazisat the proverbial hands of an incorporeal evil is good? Bad? The answer seems to be: “phantasmagorical.” The purpose may be incoherence, so long as the film focuses attention on discrete images, while keeping the big picture faint.
Michael Mann’s ‘The Keep’ Is Similar to Lovecraftian Horror
It would almost work, if the keep has a psychological effect on the soldiers that reflects in the filmmaking. Instead,The Keep(and its villain) is caught between two horror traditions: Nazi occultism of concrete imagery and a separation of us and them, and weird fiction of unreliable narrators and probing tentacles. The aesthetic trappings are consistent with later works likeHellboy,Wolfenstein, andOverlord, which all take advantage of Hitler’s alleged interest in sorcery and demonology. However strange, such interesting titles have sprung up, including a 2013 found-footage film,Frankenstein’s Army, boasting creature design so impressive it evenawed the Japanese. The Nazi-killing force released from the depths of the keep is the Radu Molasar, which begins as a billowing swirl of smoke. Apparently, Mann didn’t have the best idea of how to bring this creature to life, which was further complicated by the death of visual effects supervisorWally Veevers. When the smoke has had its fill of life force and takes shape, the audience is treated toone of the most underwhelming horror villains since Rawhead Rex, a weird bodybuilder golem given over to fits of rage. “I will destroy them!” he yells. Terrifying.
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The ‘Ferrari’ and ‘Heat’ director (allegedly) had it out for the man behind ‘The Exorcist.’
Molasar works better as a force of unknowable power, and his arrivals are always heralded by gusts of wind that blow papers around and make people squint and yell. Of course, there’s something undeniably charming about the creature’s final form, especially for fans ofdaikaiju eigaor vintage sci-fi. A movie monster is a movie monster, and sometimes, more is better than less. Unfortunately,the big scene of his promised destruction was never actually filmed, making for the most inexcusable continuity gap, next to the sudden sex scene between Eva and Glaeken. The aftermath of the Molasar’s Nazi massacre instead leaves the carnage to the imagination, that infinite canvas so essential toLovecraftian horror. What is seen, what is concrete inThe Keep, is the literal stone of the fortress, the production design which captures a proper cosmic doom. The exterior is featureless save for a single black hole entrance, and the interior is made up of spaces too wide for human use,where men who linger are driven mad by their dreams.
Man Is the True Monster in ‘The Keep’
Unfamiliar with the Molasar, Woermann has no suspect suspects of the rising body count, which prompts the unwelcome dispatch of Erich Kaempffer (Gabriel Byrne) and his SS. Where the first detachment passed through the village without incident, Kaempffer immediately rounds up the villagers and executes three of them, against Woermann’s protest. His discomfort with the slaughter of civilians stems from his past as an anti-fascist with possible ties to theInternational Brigades in Spain. He isn’t just a “Good German,” or one meant to draw sympathy once juxtaposed with a more archetypal Nazi. Thus,The Keephas its players for a conversation about the nature of evil itself, whether it’s best represented by an ancient curse or human men in black uniforms, and whether those two things are even so different.
As foreshadowed by a priest driven to madness inside the keep,Dr. Cuza strikes a devil’s bargain with the Molasar, who cures him of scleroderma and believes that releasing this evil from the keep will win the war. This belief is described by the film as the corrupting influence of power, and Cuza has to resist his desire for vengeance to prevent the Molasar’s destruction from spreading beyond the Nazis.Throughout the film, the progression of the Molasar’s outbreak from within the keep is paralleled to the evil inside men’s hearts which the Nazis represent.Woermann describes it in virological terms, and true enough, the racism of Nazis was imprinted on the global cultural consciousness and never fully went away. However, Cuza’s ultimate resistance to the Molasar is an act of courage that Woermann isn’t able to match. He didn’t actually fight in Spain, and now he’s taking orders from the SS. If there aren’t interpersonal relationships between these characters, there are thematic connections. And then Glaekan shoots the Molasar with a beam of light, and everything goes boom. Spoiler alert?
There are no spoilers forThe Keep. Even a first viewing doesn’t spoil the second, as the details are so murky as to never coalesce in memory. First introduced in a concentration camp, we next find Dr. Cuza and Eva already inside the keep, with no scene of retrieval or hint as to the travel arrangements. Where the first act is reasonably easy to follow, the film then declines like a rambling story with dreamlike sequences and an incidental collaboration of non-protagonists pushing the plot forward. But to where?Despite the fact that Michael Mannnever worked in the fantasy genre again, his own directorial quirks ensured that what could’ve been a campy horror film, in keeping with the era, was instead as serious as a funeral.The Keepis anchored by a bleak tone in addition to its atmospheric production design, allowing all the other parts to float freely. The score is otherworldly simply by being so disconnected from the action. The Molasar is not so much a villain as a counterargument made flesh and anger.The Keepdoes not end up feeling victorious, but why should it? We have enough victories, enough stories of success. Directors should be so lucky to have a fascinating failure under their belt, though few are as haunting and genuinely strange asThe Keep.
The Keepis available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
