the audience applauded

Absolutely the worst movie.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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.

Its hard to rate a movie like this. The environments, photography, creature body suits and effects, Tangerine Dream soundtrack, and Jurgen Prochnow were fantastic. Unfortunately it was badly maimed when it was cut in half to be of normal theater running time, so characters and relationships change so suddenly and inexplicably as to be completely absurd, and most viewers didn't know this. And, frankly, some of the actors, while being good sports and well-intentioned, were pretty bad hams. So if you take the really good, the really bad, and the isolated knowledge that the movie was forcibly butchered by studio requirements you end up with a movie that some people love, some people hate.... a cult classic. Sadly I don't think it was ever even released in the U.S. on DVD??? For many years I wish I had a way to contact Michael Mann and ask him if he has the other half of the movie or if the studio kept it buried somewhere, I would dearly love to see the rest of it, even if its just raw footage. "Where am I from? I am..... from you!".

It remains one of the most frustrating experiences for a Michael Mann fan to go through. The Keep is by definition a mixed bag, a collage of weirdness, tackiness and visual smarts that are great but in all honesty are in the wrong movie. It even boasts a cast of considerable talent, where Messrs Jürgen Prochnow, Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen and Gabriel Byrne lead off from the front. But the troubled production and numerous edits and cuts of the piece have left it as a scarred but fascinating oddity.Based on F. Paul Wilson's novel of the same name, plot is set in World War II Romania. When members of the German army hole up at a Carpathian Castle, they get more than they ever could have bargained for when greed unleashes an evil demon upon all who dwell in the vicinity. In short order the German's are requested to seek out the aid of a Jewish historian (McKellen), who is freed from a death camp and hurried along to Carpathia to help the Nazis. Then there is the mysterious Glaeken Trismegestus (Glenn), a man of seriously scary eyes who is making a journey to the castle for the sake of humanity.Now, there are a lot of reviews out there for The Keep, but since there are quite a few versions out there with different endings, it's difficult to know which one is being reviewed. But the over riding factor leans towards it being a mess of a movie. Wilson himself was greatly angered by the version he watched, which may well have been the original 3 hour plus cut? Calling it an incoherent monstrosity. This latest cut I saw was the "theatrical" version, complete with an extra "fan edit" ending, and I'm indebted to an on line friend and those "fans" who have given me the chance to see two endings that I hadn't seen before! Yet the one constant is Tangerine Dream's LSD inspired musical score!Mann is early in his career here and trying his best to make something thematically potent and visually arresting, but it ultimately is done down by mixed ambitions and budget restrictions, where no amount of editing and fog machine usage can mask the problems. In fact it's now thought that Mann wasn't even directing come the second half of the movie?! It was an experience that would send him away from the big screen and into other work for the next few years. Thankfully for us Mann fans it proved to be a blessing in disguise, for he would return to make a serious mark on cinema from the director's chair. But with that still comes the disappointment that The Keep is not the thoughtful atmospheric classic that Mann envisaged when he started out to make it. 6/10

Finally caught up with this: I'm not a Michael Mann fan, but this really is sensationally bad. Some terrible performances from otherwise capable actors, seemingly edited by Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, but the sound cut by a child. It's not a triumph of cinematography either .. but seriously, how Gabriel Byrne's career survived this one is a happy mystery. Oh, and Ian McKellen appears with his face covered badly in talcum powder, to denote old age.I shouldn't compare this to the triumph, the monument, that is 'Lifeforce' - but it has something of the same clunky, imbecilic quality. One for the completist or the connoisseur of the stinky.