The Keep

Oh boy this is an eighties flick. How much of an eighties flick is it? It is practical effects, painted lighting, exclusively synth soundtrack, more smoke than not, puffy shirts with rolled sleeves and faux lasers eighties is what it is. It's a fun watch despite narrative leaps but that sound mix is truly distractingly awful. Somebody must have been doing lines on the console when even the dialogue can go from barely audiable to commercial break in the same scene. Late night watching requires a hand on the remote at all times.

The Nazis seize an ancient Romanian fortress and are predictably eliminated by something potentially more powerful. This is weird, but not weird for weirdness sake. It's undoubtedly a tale of an evil having to deal with another evil, but everything feels so distant and unfamiliar. I don't want to make light of this because it's not a B-movie or anything. It is deadly serious. But it's so hard to like because its characters are cutouts of cliched evil. There's just no one to like in "The Keep". I do like the mystery of the fortress but it's not played up enough. The ancient evil within it is threatening but its depiction is underwhelming. The special effects are mired in '80's tackiness. This is not a movie that I didn't care for, I just don't know how to grasp what its supposed to be. Normally that's an okay thing, but I thought I was watching a potential Halloween horror and my expectations were misplaced.