Keep, The: Limited Edition (4K UHD Review)

Reviewed by: Stephen Bjork
Review Date: Sep 19, 2025
Format: 4K Ultra HD

Director

Michael Mann

Release Date(s)

1983 (September 10, 2025)

Studio(s)

Paramount Pictures (Imprint Films/Via Vision Entertainment)

Film/Program Grade: C+
Video Grade: A-
Audio Grade: B-
Extras Grade: A+
Overall Grade: A+

viavision.com.au

Review

In the annals of cinematic history, there have been many legendary films that have become lost to time for one reason or another. These can be divided roughly into three different categories. The first consists of films that have simply vanished without a trace, in many cases because the original nitrate negatives are now gone with the wind and no extant prints have ever been located. That’s especially true of silent films like Tod Browning’s London After Midnight, but in a cruel twist of fate, the advent of digital storage technology has proven to be just as ephemeral. Completed films like Coyote vs. Acme and nearly completed ones like Batgirl have been at risk of being erased at the touch of a button, thanks to short-sighted executives who have decided that as content providers, it’s more profitable not to release content and just take a tax write-down instead. (To be fair, there does appear to be some light at the end of the tunnel for Coyote vs. Acme, but it still hasn’t poked its head out of that tunnel as of this writing.)

The second category is related to the first. It consists of mutilated films like Erich von Stroheim’s Greed and Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, where the original director’s cuts were slashed down and the deleted footage was discarded or destroyed. While hope springs eternal that the missing material may eventually be discovered somewhere in a hidden vault, that’s rather unlikely at this late stage of the game. Just like with London After Midnight, other silent films, and even a few early talkies, what’s been lost to the editorial process may never be found again.

Yet there’s a third category of lost films where there’s no hope whatsoever that they’ll ever see the light of day. That’s because they were never completed properly in the first place, either due to unforeseen circumstances, muddled intentions, or studio interference. These films often end up being released in one form or another, but not the way that the filmmakers originally intended. Fans may dream of a restored director’s cut, but that’s simply not possible because so many compromises were made during the original production that none of the existing footage could ever be re-assembled into anything even remotely resembling the filmmaker’s original vision. The only way to create a new director’s cut would be to build a time machine to go back and shoot the whole damned thing over again. Such is the case with Michael Mann’s troubled 1983 adaptation of F. Paul Wilson’s novel The Keep.

Actually, “troubled” is putting it mildly—The Keep had myriad issues from conception to post-production, some of which can be laid at the feet of nervous Paramount executives, but much of it began with Mann himself. His rough cut ran over three hours, but he was contractually obligated to deliver a two-hour cut, and bad test screenings meant that Paramount decided to hack it down further to just 96 minutes before dumping the film into theatres with little fanfare. Yet in this case, it’s not a simple matter of a studio interfering with a director’s final cut. The issues started well before that point, and while Mann is known for his attention to detail, he’s also known for changing his mind, and he never really seemed to have a clear vision of his own for The Keep. Part of that is due to Wilson’s source material, which simply wasn’t in Mann’s bailiwick. He’s a master visual stylist, but his visuals are usually driven by stories that interest him deeply, and The Keep has little of the thematic elements that has marked the rest of his career.

What did interest him about The Keep was the way that he felt that it expressed the dramatic power of dreams—which isn’t really what Wilson intended, so that wasn’t the best way to start. Mann has toyed with dream states in films like Manhunter, but that was in service of the Thomas Harris story. In the case of The Keep, Wilson seems to have meant for his supernatural story to be taken on a more literal level. Yet Mann did preserve the basic structure of the novel, although the editorial process (and other factors) left much of it bafflingly incomprehensible. It’s a tale of good vs. evil set in the Carpathian mountains during the early days of World War II, with German soldiers and SS officers encountering an even greater evil than their own while they hole up in an ancient castle keep. Yet unbeknownst to them, this ancient evil is being pursued by his immortal foe, with everyone else being caught in the middle.

Mann assembled a solid cast for The Keep that included Scott Glenn, Alberta Watson, Jürgen Prochnow, Robert Prosky, Gabriel Byrne, Ian McKellen, and William Morgan Sheppard (although many of them appear a bit lost in the film, with even the usually reliable McKellen overacting to off-Broadway levels). Mann took no chances with his crew, either, bringing on board cinematographer Alex Thompson, production designer John Box, visual effects supervisor Wally Veevers, musicians Tangerine Dream, and many other talented artists. The pieces were all in place for The Keep, but it all started to unravel quickly. Mann’s indecisiveness meant that designs were changed repeatedly on the fly, and worse, Veevers died shortly after post-production began, leaving no clear road map for anyone else to continue his work. That caused editorial issues long before Paramount insisted that everything get stripped to the bone.

As a result of all these problems and more, there are major gaps in the story, especially during the first act. After the initial attack by the demonic Molasar, the rest of his growing influence over the keep is handled not just elliptically, but downright choppily. Molasar’s nemesis Glaeken is a complete enigma, and while being enigmatic isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in this case it ends up diluting the central conflict of Wilson’s story. While restoring some of the lost footage might help clarify a few details, it still can’t solve all of the problems that were inherent to the production of The Keep. Once again, while there could be a longer cut, it could never be a true director’s cut. Mann never shot one in the first place. Any longer cut would be a compromised version of a compromised version.

And yet...

However much of a mess that the final cut of The Keep may be, there’s a good reason why it’s continued to hold fans in its spell for the last four decades. Setting aside the choppy editing and narrative ellipses, The Keep is filled with some undeniably powerful visuals. While Molasar’s ultimate form is an obvious man in a rubber suit, his very effective first appearance in a swirling cloud of smoke is vaguely reminiscent of the distant smoky appearances of the monster that producer Hal Chester added to Curse of the Demon over director Jacques Tourneur’s objections (and if only the final Molasar was anywhere near as memorable as Chester’s demon!) And perhaps counterintuitively, the fact that the story makes no sense whatsoever makes perfect sense if you interpret it as being the dream state that Mann originally envisioned. Most filmmakers interpret dream worlds as being visually distorted, but that’s not really how most dreams work. Instead, they’re temporally distorted, jumping from point A to point B without necessarily having a clear path between them. There’s no real continuity to dreams, so viewed from that perspective, the lack of continuity in The Keep could be seen as a feature, not a bug. It’s still a mess, but that messiness may well be part of its appeal.

As messes go, The Keep is a big and beautiful one, filled with ambitions that had no hope of ever being fully realized. In terms of lost films, what was really lost during the making of The Keep was Michael Mann’s innocence. The experience taught him as much about what he couldn’t do as what he could, and he had to learn that lesson the hard way. He never returned to this kind of subject matter again, but more importantly, he never approached another project without a clear vision of the story that he wanted to tell. That doesn’t mean that this was his last troubled shoot; far from it. (He went through multiple cinematographers, costume designers, editors, and composers during the chaotic production of The Last of the Mohicans.) But the issues on some of his later films were the result of his relentless pursuit of perfection, not due to any kind of indecision. The Keep is a deeply flawed film, but it’s still an important step on Mann’s journey as a filmmaker, and so it’s not a lost film at all. It’s just the proverbial broken egg that he had to work through before he really learned how to cook.

Cinematographer Alex Thompson shot The Keep on 35mm film using Arriflex cameras with anamorphic Cooke lenses, framed at 2.35:1 for its theatrical release. This 4K master is the same one that was previously released by Vinegar Syndrome, which is based on a 4K scan of the original camera negative, digitally cleaned up and graded for High Dynamic Range in both Dolby Vision and HDR10. The optically printed opening title sequence was derived from dupe elements, and there’s some dirt, speckling, and scratches visible that were inherent to the original optical work, so it’s been left alone here. Any optical work during the rest of the film shares the same minor issues, although there are a few shots here and there that don’t have any obvious opticals in them but still look like dupe footage. With that out of the way, the only damage visible in the camera negative material consists of a few fleeting light scratches. It’s not the sharpest and most detailed 4K presentation, given the lenses and stocks that were involved (to say nothing of an abundance of smoke and other diffusion effects), but it’s a revelation compared to the previous DVD and LaserDisc versions.

The HDR grade excels with bright highlights like the blinding glow of the mystical energies, and the colors are generally excellent, although flesh tones do push a bit too far into the Vinegar Syndrome’s characteristic reddish hues (they haven’t been toned down for this release). That said, the opening sequence of the German trucks arriving at the keep looks truly beautiful in this version, with the subtly different greens of the grasses looking much more natural. The reds get really aggressive during the sex scene between Glaeken and Eva, but that’s more of a stylistic choice. Once again, any minor flaws pale in comparison to the vast improvements over previous home video versions of The Keep—it’s a helluva big leap straight from an old LaserDisc master to this new 4K one.

Audio is offered in English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio, with optional English SDH subtitles. The Keep was released theatrically in Dolby Stereo, and this is the original four-channel mix matrix encoded into two. That’s for good and for ill, because the theatrical mix was hastily produced, and a title card in front of the film notes, “certain mix-related issues are inherent in the source and cannot be improved.” There’s a slightly harsh edge to most of the dialogue and it doesn’t always decode cleanly to the center channel—the dialogue turns almost incomprehensible during the scene where Dr. Cuza first meets Molasar. There’s noticeable distortion on the peaks, too. That said, there are definitely encoded surrounds present, including panning effects like when the spirit forces pan out of the surrounds and into the front soundstage. Sound effects like thunder are also steered into the surrounds. It’s a reasonably immersive mix for 1983, with fabulous music by Tangerine Dream, so it’s a shame that the source issues keep getting in the way. This is one case where a remix from the original stems would have been lovely, but they probably don’t even exist at this point.

Via Vision’s Region-Free Cross Replica Limited Edition 4K Ultra HD release of The Keep is #438 in their Imprint Films line. It’s a four-disc set that includes a UHD as well as a Blu-ray with a 1080p copy of the film, plus a second Blu-ray with the documentary A World War II Fairy Tale: The Making Of Michael Mann’s The Keep. It also includes a CD copy of Tangerine Dream’s soundtrack album. And have a seat, my children, because it includes oh so much more than that:

A 21oz. zinc alloy replica of one of the 108 crosses on the walls of The Keep
A laminated 27″ x 40″ foldout poster
A 120-page reprint of the five-issue comic book adaptation of the novel by F. Paul Wilson and Matthew Smith
A reproduction of the original 1983 press kit
Twelve reproductions of the original Lobby Cards
An 80-page hardcover booklet featuring photographs; original production material; essays by Tim Pelan, David Michael Brown, and William Grant; and a reprint of a 1984 Fangoria article
A reprint of Michael Mann’s first draft script
Six art cards

The discs are housed in a 3D lenticular hardcase, and the whole shebang comes packaged in a heavy oversized spot gloss/foil stamped hardbox with a PVC protective cover. The cross is embedded in the front of the box, with a ribbon underneath it in order to help remove it. (Don’t forget to lay the ribbon back down before replacing it, or else you’ll have to thump the back of the box pretty hard in order to get it to pop out. It’s as firmly wedged in place as the crosses on the wall.)

Now, there’s swag, and then there’s swag, and then there’s swag. This set is an example of the latter. Lest you think that it’s all about trinkets with no real substance, never fear, because the extras are no less bountiful:

DISC ONE: FEATURE FILM (UHD)

Audio Commentary by Troy Howarth, Eugenio Ercolani, and Nathaniel Thompson
Audio Commentary by F. Paul Wilson, David J. Schow, and Douglas E. Winter
Audio Commentary with Stewart Buck, Alan Tomkins, Graham Attwood, and Cast & Crew Members

DISC TWO: FEATURE FILM (BD)

Audio Commentary by Troy Howarth, Eugenio Ercolani, and Nathaniel Thompson
Audio Commentary by F. Paul Wilson, David J. Schow, and Douglas E. Winter
Audio Commentary with Stewart Buck, Alan Tomkins, Graham Attwood, and Cast & Crew Members
The Making of The Keep (Upscaled SD – 25:35)
On the Set of The Keep (Upscaled SD – 25:14)
An Evil Most Ancient: The Make-Up FX of The Keep (HD – 24:35)
Something is Murdering My Men: Writing The Keep (HD – 24:01)
Other Sounds for Other Worlds: The Music of The Keep (HD – 11:13)
Out of the Darkness: Producing The Keep (HD – 6:58)
Recover the Mindset (HD – 21:28)
Picture Gallery (HD, 156 in all)
Alternative Ending from TV Version (Upscaled SD – 6:26)
Theatrical Trailer (HD – 2:17)
VHS Trailer (Upscaled SD – 2:01)
Radio Spot (HD – :27)

Via Vision has added not one, not two, but three different commentary tracks for this release. The first one is with author Troy Howarth, extras producer Eugenio Ercolani, and Mondo Digital’s Nathaniel Thompson. The three of them are experts on cult movies in general and horror in particular, so they’re ideal guides for a journey through The Keep. Of course, they’re three different people with three different opinions, so it’s interesting to hear how they sort through things like the rumored 70mm release (which despite some trade reports about one, there’s no direct evidence that it ever happened).

The second commentary is a writer’s commentary, but as they note, only one of them was directly involved with The Keep. F. Paul Wilson is joined by authors David J. Schow and Douglas E. Winter, who say that they’re going to provide a critical perspective, but in practice they act as a support crew for him. Wilson discusses the differences between his book and the film, as well as the difference between the first draft of the script and the final cut. Needless to say, they’re not necessarily kind to the film, but given the vast gulf between Wilson’s intentions and what Mann delivered, that’s fair. (He notes the exact moment where the film jumps the shark for him, although Schow and Winter point out the similarities in that scene to Curse of the Demon, so it’s not just me.)

The final commentary could be best thought of as much as a companion piece to A World War II Fairy Tale: The Making of Michael Mann’s The Keep as to The Keep itself. It’s with one of the directors of that film, Stewart Buck, joined by The Keep art director Alan Tomkins and original unit still photographer Graham Attwood. It’s really a curated track with the contributions of the three of them interspersed with archival audio interviews with other members of the cast and crew (all of them outtakes from the five years of interviews conducted for A World War II Fairytale). As a result, it’s filled with far more practical information about the making of The Keep than the other two tracks, but all three have their merits.

The Making of The Keep and On the Set of The Keep are two episodes of The Electric Theatre Show that originally aired back in 1983 on Grampian Television Channel 3 in Scotland. They’re both priceless artifacts since they contain an abundance of behind-the-scenes footage and on-set interviews. Michael Mann remains front and center, but other members of the cast and crew offer their thoughts about the story and the making of the film. Many of the archival clips and interviews contained in the other extras in this set were derived from these episodes, but it’s well worth checking them out here in order to see the context behind them.

The next four extras are interviews that were conducted for Vinegar Syndrome’s UHD release of The Keep. An Evil Most Ancient is with makeup effects designer Nick Maley, who talks about the evolving designs for Molasar and why they ultimately ended up with a man in a suit. Something Is Murdering My Men is with F. Paul Wilson, who takes a step back to discuss his background and his influences (interestingly enough, he says that Robert Ludlum was more of an influence on The Keep than anyone else). Wilson also discusses the nature of his story and how it was changed for the film—he ultimately declares that “it is what it is.” Other Sounds for Other Worlds is with former Tangerine Dream keyboardist Johannes Schmoelling, who talks about having to rework their score repeatedly during the editorial process. Finally, Out of the Darkness is with producer Gene Kirkwood, who offers a brief overview of the production as seen from his own perspective.

Recovering the Mindset is a new video essay by podcaster Blake Howard, who examines The Keep in the broader context of the rest of Mann’s career, both in terms of its unique qualities and visual harmonies with his other work. (As the title suggests, Manhunter is really the centerpiece of his analysis.)

The rest of the extras include a Picture Gallery and a collection of trailers and a radio spot (including the VHS trailer!), but the one that fans will want the most is the Alternative Ending from TV Version, which continues beyond the freeze frame at the end of the theatrical cut to show Eva’s search for Glaeken’s body and his ambiguous resurrection. It’s presented here at full frame 1.33:1, with 2.0 Dolby Digital audio.

DISC THREE: A WORLD WAR II FAIRY TALE: THE MAKING OF MICHAEL MANN’S THE KEEP (BD)

A World War II Fairy Tale: The Making of Michael Mann’s The Keep (HD – 89:48)
Woermann: Man of War (HD – 30:21)
Into the Darkness: On Location in Wales (HD – 25:50)
The Mystery of The Keep (HD – 30:27)
My Keep: Passion and Desires (HD – 18:53)

A World War II Fairy Tale: The Making of Michael Mann’s The Keep is a new feature-length documentary produced and directed by Stewart Buck and Stéphane Piter. Well, “new” is a loaded term in this case, since befitting anything to do with The Keep, it’s a project that has had a complicated journey of its own. The original interview sessions for it were conducted over a five-year period between 2011-2015, and then it took the next decade after that to raise enough funds to put everything together. The final documentary combines those newer interviews with archival ones, vintage behind-the-scenes footage, and animation. It covers everything from Michael Mann’s background and the writing of the novel to the pre-production, production, and post-production of The Keep (although strangely enough, it omits any discussion of its theatrical release). While it’s obviously a labor of love, Buck and Piter weren’t afraid to delve into the indecision and uncertainty that plagued the entire project, from the evolving design of Molasar to Mann’s difficulty in committing during the editorial process.

A staggering number of participants were involved, many of them speaking about The Keep for the first time since 1983. New interview subjects include F. Paul Wilson, producer Gene Kirkwood, associate producer Gavin MacFadyen, visual effects supervisor Peter Kuran, special effects supervisors Garth Inns and Nick Allder, makeup supervisor Nick Maley, Johannes Schmoelling, sound mixer Henry Dobson, Graham Attwood, and many, many more, including critics Kim Newman, Scott Foundas, and F.X. Feeney. Archival interviews include Mann, Scott Glenn, Alberta Watson, Ian McKellen, Jürgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Thompson, John Box, Wally Veevers, editor Dov Hoenig, and yes, many more than that. A World War II Fairytale is presented here at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, with English 2.0 stereo LPCM audio and optional English SDH subtitles.

My Keep: Passions and Desires is an interview with director Stéphane Piter, who explains how his first encounter with The Keep back in 1984 led to a lifelong obsession with the film. It inspired him to want to learn how films like that are made, which led to the development of his own studio and art (he was responsible for some of the artwork seen in A World War II Fairytale).

Of course, since Piter and Stewart Buck had five years’ worth of interview footage in the can, it would have been a shame to let the rest of it go to waste, so the other extras make full use of it. Into the Darkness: On Location in Wales is devoted to reminiscences about the abandoned Glyn Rhonwy Quarry that served as the primary location for the exteriors in The Keep. Local animal handler (and former hotel owner) Aneuryn Jones provides some history about the quarry and what the production meant to the dying village nearby, while former crew members like location supervisor John Ellis Roberts, transportation coordinators John Seguwren Roberts & Dafydd Price, and assistant directors Ray Corbett, Kieron Phipps, and Paul Madigan describe their experiences making the film on location. (There are also interviews with various actors who played the German soldiers and locals who played the Romanian villagers.)

The Mystery of The Keep is an examination of the film and the development of Michael Mann’s work from The Jericho Mile through The Keep and beyond. It features interviews with critics Alan Jones, Scott Foundas, F.X. Feeney, and Kim Newman, plus various academics and journalists like Jonathan Rayner, Vincent M. Gaine, Ian Christie, and Mark Steensland. They point out how The Keep may seem like an outlier compared to the rest of Mann’s filmography, yet the films that followed still benefited from the experience of making it—Feeney, for example, notes that the conceptual failure of a monster like Molasar led to the much more fully realized monster of Francis Dollarhyde in Manhunter.

Finally, Woermann: Man of War is an extended interview with the great Jürgen Prochnow. He was in Los Angeles promoting Das Boot when he was asked to play Woermann in The Keep, and despite his reservations about playing yet another German officer in his Hollywood debut, Mann convinced him to take the part. Prochnow describes his experiences working on the film, noting that since his character wasn’t really involved with any of the fantasy elements, he didn’t participate in shooting any of them. (He also left the production early.) He also addresses the guilt that he felt playing these kinds of roles, since he’s a German citizen born in 1941 with ancestors who bear some guilt over what happened during World War II.

DISC FOUR: SOUNDTRACK (CD)

Puer Natus Est Nobis (Gloria) (3:12)
Arx Allemand (4:34)
Truth and Fiction (2:58)
The Silver Seal (3:09)
Ancient Powerplant (4:31)
Supernatural Accomplice (4:12)
The Challenger’s Arrival (3:19)
Heritage Survival (5:01)
Parallel Words (4:30)
Canzone (4:22)
Voices From a Common Land (4:05)
Wardays Sunrise (3:30)
The Night in Romania (3:16)

This appears to be essentially the same soundtrack CD that was included in the Pilots of the Purple Twilight boxed set. Like many soundtrack albums from that era, it’s not really the film’s score, but rather a collection of music that isn’t even necessarily in the film at all—and in this case, very little of it was actually used. The reality is that the score in the film uses bits and pieces from this album, but mostly re-uses various existing Tangerine Dream cues from other albums. So don’t waste your time trying to match it up to the film, but it’s still an evocative enough album when taken on its own merits.

Not counting the CD, that’s just three minutes shy of nine hours of extras (you knew that the math was coming, didn’t you?) Throw in the CD, and it’s nearly ten hours. Yet there are still a couple of missing extras from the Vinegar Syndrome set. They offered their own commentary with Matthew Asprey Gear, plus two more interviews that aren’t included here, one with Peter Kuran, and the other with Molasar suit actor Michael Carter. They also had a different (and briefer) stills gallery. Yet Via Vision’s set is still weightier in every way imaginable (metaphorically and literally, since it’s one of the heaviest single-film sets that I’ve ever owned). Its cup overflows with invaluable extras, and Via Vision has mastered the art of swag like few other labels ever will—this isn’t just a few random art cards and a mini-poster, but rather a genuinely interesting archive of the original script and pressbook materials, to say nothing of a solid metal cross that will definitely leave a mark if you drop it on your toes. 2025 has been a banner year for physical media releases, but Via Vision’s The Keep still stands proudly as one of the very best, right up there with Arrow’s UHD sets for Cruising and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in terms of content, and easily beating them when you consider the swag. It’s highly, highly recommended for those who can swallow the steep price tag (including the cost of shipping from Australia for those of us who live in the United States, which is no less painfully steep). The Keep may not be a masterpiece, but this set is.

-Stephen Bjork

(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).