The Keep 4K 1983 Ultra HD 2160p

A squad of Germans occupies a Romanian village, not suspecting that the position where they have set up their headquarters has a troubled history. Their commander, a great guy despite his work in the Wehrmacht, and it's hardly his fault that his subordinates are slowly being eaten alive and torn apart by an invisible force that moves as a puff of smoke through the positions.

The professor is pulled out of a concentration camp to help solve a mystery, and he takes his very vulnerable daughter with him. While she is being raped, a monster appears out of the mist and tears all the bad guys apart, befriending the professor.

User Review
One of Michael Mann's earliest films, 'The Keep' is now quite a rare and completely underrated work of his. However, the picture was not bad and it really can be considered one of the most important mystical horror films of the 1980s.

The movie is set in a remote Romanian village in 1941. A group of Nazis arrive there and occupy an ancient, medieval fortress, about which there are bad rumors. Against the warnings of the fortress' caretaker, the soldiers accidentally release a certain evil spirit, which soon begins to kill them one by one.

While watching 'The Keep' I involuntarily had associations with the movies 'The Grotto': it reminded me of a vast dungeon, and 'The Wish Maker': actually the demon Rasalom (Molasar) is similar to the evil genie (Wish Maker) from the above mentioned picture. However, here all the actions of evil are limited to rather spectacular murders, but it is a pity that bloodless.

The main antipode of the demon is some rather charismatic warrior, who felt the awakening of evil and soon arrived at the fortress to fight with Rasalom. Unfortunately the images of both are not revealed in much detail. The viewer does not get to know fully who Rasalom is, where he came from, and this applies to the good warrior as well. The movie clearly lacks a flashback, which plays the role of a prologue to the main action of the picture, about how the demon was imprisoned in his 'prison', as well as other details.

The atmosphere in the movie is not too creepy, but definitely tense, supported by the hackneyed but eternal theme of the Apocalypse: 'you can't let evil out, or else the world will end'. The atmosphere is also supported by the actions of the Nazis, who carry out a brutal massacre of the local population. It is worth noting that the director emphasized the historical difference between the SS soldiers and ordinary soldiers (soldiers) of the German army, expressed in the level of their violence.

A significant disadvantage of the movie, are the murders left off-screen. This greatly spoils the impression of the picture and reduces the overall index of the basic horror, which in the first place should come from the demon. Rasalom initially appears to the viewer as an ominous mist and only towards the end, recharged with life energy, acquires his final humanoid form, which is quite creepy: a real hell demon.

The acting in the movie is not bad. The characters' images are generally revealed, although they are not very intricate and philosophical here. The picture is not rich in clearly memorable characters, but perhaps the brightest of them is a warrior - the antipode of Rasalom. But the music in the movie is very good, very creepy and atmospheric, it is the main pillar of tension in The Keep'.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (83.6 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Info Audio

#English: FLAC 2.0
#English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Commentary with film historian Matthew Aspery Gear)

Info Subtitles

English SDH.