The Keep (1983)

(Horror, Supernatural,War, 1983) (15) D : Michael Man W : F. Paul Wilson ,S : Scott Glenn, Gabriel Bryne, Ian McKellen 1h 36m. USA.

TAGLINE : They were all drawn to the keep.

Nazis are forced to turn to a Jewish historian for help in battling the ancient demon they have inadvertently freed from it’s prison. At the Keep they will face EVIL.

A group of German soldiers in the Romanian mountains during WWII use an ancient stone fortress as their makeshift headquarters. The nazis are being eaten alive by an unseen force. Scott Glenn appears like a modern day superhero named Glaekon Trismegistus. Meanwhile a crippled professor (Ian McKlennen) and his daughter are brought in from a concentration camp to help the nazis who are also trying to raid the fortress to a Tangerine Dream OST.

The Monster is remarkable; I really admired the effects used to produce it, despite looking like a Marvel super villain it was hard to believe he was created when I was only 2 years old.

This movie is based on the Jewish legend of the Golem, but he’s been liberated from a creature fashioned of mud and stone into a creature that has forged itself from death and stone.

I felt that the film switched loyalty part was through, it seemed that we are herded to Scott Glenn as a saviour, where I was all for the Golem liberating the Jewish people in their time of need! I reckon it could have made a better story if the fall of the third reich was down to the Golem. Apart from that  I really enjoyed the film, it was quite original.
T : In the original novel by F. Paul Wilson, the Character Glasken calls himself Glenn, and in the movie he’s played by Scott Glenn.

Q : “A Devil? Now you listen to me, The devil in the Keep wears a black uniform , had a death’s head on his cap and calls him self sturmbannfuhrer.”

OST : Tangerine Dream throughout

R : Der Golem (1916/1920), The Bunker (2001)

7/10