Quick! Remember back in 1998 when you taped Castle Keep off Channel Five, and stored the tape safely away vowing “one day, I shall complete my collection of ponderously-paced psychological horror films with pretensions way above their station, about a bunch of Nazis guarding a remote Eastern European fort and one by one succumbing to supernatural happenings”? Well, now’s the time to act! This is, amusingly, based on an entirely different novel with the same plot, albeit a more sci-fi, less literary one. But that doesn’t stop Michael Mann wheeling out the latex bogeymen with all the pomp and bluster he can muster, plus everyone’s least favourite soundtrack composers, Tangerine Dream.
Johnnyboy
January 10, 2014 at 12:36 am
The movie that was eventually released in the cinema (and exisiting on VHS, if you can find a TV copy, folks) was hacked to ribbons by the studio execs; it was to be @ 4 hours long but sliced to bits, which explains a lot of head-scratching when viewing (esp. near the end). It has it’s scares in places and the feeling of dread is very well evoked. Gandalf, oops sorry – Ian McKellen played his role as you know he does in any other movie, Gabriel Byrne in there too, trying and failing to be an SS Nazi (just too one-dimensional baddie to be believable). The Keep itself is a great set though, both out and in: you’re not getting me going anywhere near that ancient pile, no sirree.
Rumours of a re-realease now Mr Mann and Paramount have made amends, but this was a year or so ago and it’s all gone quiet. “Don’t touch the crosses!!”