The Keeper

1976 "Christopher Lee, master of the macabre, takes you and his patients to the brink of insanity."
4.4| 1h28m| en
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The Keeper of Underwood Asylum has the mental patients of the wealthiest families in British Columbia. The rest of the family members have been dying under mysterious circumstances, so Biggs hires private investigator Richard Driver, who puts his assistant, Maybelline, in the asylum pretending she is his cousin and that they came from a family where the parents were all first cousins to each other and they decided to keep their love platonic for genetic reasons. Then he tries to get Inspector Clarke to check him in as a narcoleptic who didn't wake up with his body. They all know what the keeper has been doing, but it is a matter of proving it, and avoiding the hypnotized Biggs twins and Danny, who he is able to keep catatonic with his machine. Inspector Clarke gives driver a lot of trouble, and the kid giving shoe shines looks down on everybody, knowing more.

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Reviews

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Rainey Dawn The Keeper is actually a 1976 film that was never released theatrically. It finally aired for the first time on television in 1985 as a CBS late movie after sitting in a vault for around 9 years.This is one of the worst movies that Christopher Lee has ever made. I do agree with others that C. Lee agreed to do this film for the money only - he must have needed it.It's a film that is worth watching only for die-hard Christopher Lee fans, or for those that like to watch rare and awful movies for the sake of it. I don't recommend this film to fans of horror in general though, it's pretty bad. There is a reason this film never made it into theaters and was kept in a vault for all those years.3/10
dmacewen-619-299258 Unlike some viewers, who have only "recently" become Christopher Lee fans, I've been a fan of Lee for 25 years. Now I don't have a gripe with Steven Kuroiwa's review of this film, since it isn't very good. I do, however, have a problem with upstarts passing themselves off as reliable critical sources, putting viewers off a remarkable film like Peter Sykes's To the Devil a Daughter, a film that falls just shy of his masterpiece Demons of the Mind (both films written, or co-written, by the great Christopher Wicking). So if you were unfortunate enough to read that review, put it out of your mind. And put To the Devil a Daughter at the top of your queue. I have spoken.
Kel G I give this film 2 points for hiring a well known actor like Lee. I give it another point for making it a historical film(set in the 40s or so)without any glaring anachronism and another point for having adequate camera and sound (which should be a given but I'll be kind as it was made in my place of birth).This is a terrible boring film. Likely the worst Christopher Lee film I have watched--even worse than his Jess Franco Fu Manchu movies. Worse than the Star Wars prequels. Worse than the Crimson Cult. Worse than Howling 2.By general bad movie standards it is worse than Dracula vs Frankenstein. At least those films had some entertainment value--this really has none other than wondering what Lee must have thought as he was making it.Canadian movies can and often do lack passion, imagination, and when all else fails turn into feeble comedies. 9 times out of 10, if you hear about a Canadian sci-fi or horror movie made by native-born Canadians, chances are its a /comedy of some sort.In this case the film is likely inspired by Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest combined with 1930s street drama and any kind of mad doctor story you can think of just to make it have low budget commercial appeal.The private investigator Driver attempts to act suave and cool like Sam Spade and fails, but isn't aware of it. It isn't funny in a Leslie Nielsen kind of way.The dialogue is disjointed and poorly thought out so you get exchanges like this: Private Eye: Has there been any murders at the asylum? Police Chief: Yes, seven--but what troubles me is, what if these deaths were actually murders? Its an amateur film on almost every level except the picture and sound are functional (perhaps to the viewer's detriment) with a decent enough use of locations and period costumes. There's no attempt at moody lighting, and the soundtrack is a 70s electronic score of some kind --not keeping with the era it is presenting.This is the first Canadian genre film made in British Columbia by Canadians (other than a porn film) and it is a complete failure. Not even useful as a so bad it is good kind of experience. If you don't believe me, waste an hour and a half of your life and find out.
cfc_can The Keeper is a poor attempt at a psychological horror film in which Lee plays the head of an asylum that caters to rich families with unstable family members whom they want to keep out of public. What really sinks this film is the incredibly amateurish look. You'd swear that it was made by film making students. There are no scares and the plot has some really stupid holes and characters, especially a dopey policeman who gets hypnotized. Lee looks like he wishes he were elsewhere throughout the film. Can't say that I blame him!