BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

jellopuke It's a shame we'll never get to see the director's actual vision for this movie because it was cut from 3 hours to 90 minutes by the studio, because what is here is quite cool, even though it's chopped so badly that in some cases the sound mix is way off. There's something neat trying to get out, but we can only see what's here and say, could have been more.

BA_Harrison A German battalion, led by humanitarian Captain Woermann (Jürgen Prochnow), is sent to guard a strategic pass in the Carpathian mountains, setting up base in a centuries old fortress shunned by the locals. After a pair of greedy soldiers prise out one of the many metal crosses embedded in the keep's walls, they unwittingly release Molasar, a supernatural Jewish entity known as a golem, who begins to kill the troops.An SS division is deployed to try and find out who is responsible for the deaths, Major Kaempffer (Gabriel Byrne) believing the attacks to be the work of partisans. After strange writing is found on the fortress wall, the Germans draft in Jewish academic Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen, putting in a very hammy performance) and his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson) to translate the text. When Eva is assaulted by two SS guards, the golem rescues her and confronts Theodore; sensing the ailing academic's hatred of the Nazis, the demon promises payback if the doctor will find and move the talisman that keeps it trapped in the keep.Meanwhile, Glaeken Trismegestus (Scott Glenn), an immortal being with glowing eyes, travels to the fortress to try and prevent the golem from being unleashed upon the world.I love me some Nazi horror and with a promising premise that pits two powerful forces of evil against each other—the despicable SS and the monstrous Molasar—this should have been great, especially considering the talent involved. But even though award-winning director Michael Mann delivers a film full of stylish touches and terrific production designs, his film proves far from wholly satisfying, thanks to stilted performances, some horribly dated visual effects (and lots of dry ice!), and an intrusive and totally unsuitable score by Tangerine Dream that oozes the '80s with every note (I really like TD's brooding synth sound, but it simply doesn't suit the era in which the film is set).The result is a film that both impresses AND invites derision, at times exhibiting flair and atmosphere, but looking a lot like a tacky '80s pop video for much of the remainder.

Daryl_G_Morrissey The Keep is based on the 1981 horror novel, of the same name, by American author F. Paul Wilson. The Keep was the first of six novels, called 'The Adversary Cycle'TAGLINEThey were all drawn to the Keep.The soldiers who brought death.The father and daughter fighting for life.The people who have always feared it.And the one man who knows its secret...Tonight, they will all face the evil.SYNOPSISSet in April 1941, Nazi soldiers are using the Keep of a castle, which is set high in the Romanian Carpathian mountains, as a base. Unfortunately, the soldiers are being killed off one-by-one by a mysterious entity. The Nazi commander asks for help and an SS extermination squad is sent to remedy the problem. Soon the SS soldiers are dying, too, so the SS officer has a Professor and his daughter, from Bucharest, brought to the Keep, in order to find out what is killing his men. The Professor, an expert in old Slovanic and Romanian dialects, is charged with deciphering a cryptic message that has been left on the walls of the Keep, in blood. The entity turns out to be an old evil, from an age of sorcerers, that has been imprisoned beneath the Keep for millennia. Seeing a use in the Professor, who is wheelchair bound, the entity promises him his health and youth back in return for his help. Soon after, an immortal who built the Keep as a prison arrives and, with the help of the Professors daughter, fights the evil.REVIEWAlthough not full of action or the blood-and-guts horror of recent times, this is a classic of the genre. Boasting a cast that includes Ian McKellen, Scott Glenn, Jurgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne, Alberta Waton & William Morgan Sheppard, this should have been an instant hit. The screenplay, written by Michael Mann, is short and concise with the actors 'becoming' their characters, to add power to the story. Filmed with hardly any colour and with very few sets, the film can come across as slightly claustrophobic, which only adds to the heightening terror. The soundtrack, by Tangerine Dream, gives the film an almost dreamlike quality, which is at total odds with the 1941 setting of Nazi occupied Romania. But, somehow, it all works. When it was released, it became an instant 'cult' hit but was a critical and financial disaster for Paramount.LATEST NEWSIn July 2006, F. Paul Wilson made 'The Keep' into a graphic novel. His reason for this was to visualise what his version of the film would have been like.

Rueiro After reading Paul Wilson's excellent suspenseful novel (which I picked at a second-hand book stall in a remote Welsh village) I couldn't wait to watch the film adaptation… And what a disappointment!! The only thing worth mentioning is the beautiful cinematography. As for the rest, the script is laughable at times, the main actors are totally miscast and the score is totally out of place… An electronic soundtrack on a horror story set in World War II??... The composer must have been high on weed. Jurgen Prochnow was cast because of his new international popularity after Das Boot. The girl (who is she?!) looks too much like a 1980s disco vamp, Ian McKellen seems like he happened to be passing by (Peter Cushing would have been great in the role!), Scott Glenn looks like a zombie in a cheap George Romero flick, and Robert Prosky's character was totally created by the screenwriter and is totally gratuitous, since he does nothing of any relevance to the plot. And the monster looks rather like Predator than a centuries old demon. And now I see where Mr Coppola got the armour suit design for Gary Oldman's Vlad Tepes in his infamous 1992 Dracula from… If you haven't read Wilson's novel, you won't understand half of what is going on: who is the demon, who is Glaeken, what links them to each other, who built the keep?… So many questions without an answer, so many loose ends. I understand the film originally ran for three hours but it was chopped down to 90 minutes by the studio against Mann's wishes. They totally ruined it. Don't waste your time on this mess. Go and read the book if you get a chance.