The uncanny power
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The uncanny power |
| Original title | The Keep |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1983 |
| length | 96 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Mann |
| script | Michael Mann |
| production | Gene Kirkwood Howard W. Koch |
| music | Tangerine Dream |
| camera | Alex Thomson |
| cut |
Dov Hoenig Chris Kelly |
| occupation | |
| |
The Eerie Force is a 1983 American horror film directed by Michael Mann based on the novel The Keep by F. Paul Wilson . The film is a co-production by Capital Equipment Leasing and Associated Capital distributed by Paramount Pictures and was released in US cinemas on December 16, 1983.
action
During the Second World War , a group of German soldiers under the command of Captain Woermann moved into a Romanian village in the Carpathian Mountains to occupy the nearby castle and secure a mountain pass. However, the fortress , called The Keep , is cursed, according to Alexandru, whose family has watched over the construction for generations. When asked about the secret of the place, he leaves it at hints. The self-confident commander Woermann is astonished by the architecture of the fortress construction, but does not believe the old man's warnings, and so he and his men move into quarters in the castle and begin the first renovation work.
Alexandrus explicit warning not to damage the 108 nickel crosses that adorn the massive building is ignored by soldiers - believing that they are silver crosses. Woermann initially knows how to prevent this, but rumor has it that the castle will house a silver treasure. When two guards actually discover a silver cross and unauthorized start to detach the stone block from the wall, they release an uncanny power , the suction of which tears everything that comes in their way. Both guards are killed, the other soldiers shoot wildly because they believe that partisans are attacking the base.
When further soldiers died inside the fortress under unexplained circumstances, an SS task force led by the fanatical Sturmbannführer Kaempffer was dispatched to the village to stop the partisan activities. He immediately arranged for all the villagers to be rounded up and then had three men shot and five others taken hostage, under threat of further shootings if German soldiers were to be attacked again. This led to the first violent argument between Kaempffer and Woermann, who had suspected for a long time that it was not the work of partisans. In order to decipher a mysterious message on one of the fortress walls, the clergyman recommends Fonescu, the expert Dr. Consult with Cuza. The frail Cuza, who suffers from a rare disease, and his daughter Eva are then taken to the fortress. There he revealed to the German occupiers that the message, which allegedly came from partisans, was written in a five-hundred-year-old script. Kaempffer then instructs him to solve the mystery of the mysterious deaths within three days. When Cuza's daughter is raped by two soldiers from the task force, she is saved by the uncanny power . After centuries of exile inside the fortress, absolute evil now sees its chance, Dr. To win Cuza as an ally, because only with the help of an outsider can it achieve ultimate freedom. His health immediately improves noticeably. Driven by the desire to put an end to Nazi rule, he declares himself ready to help her to freedom - misunderstanding the true character of the uncanny power .
Meanwhile, Glaeken Trismegestus can sense from Greece that something has happened to the castle and that the uncanny power has been unleashed again. Following his destiny, he sets out to stop the destructive force and thus save the world from destruction.
backgrounds
- Director Michael Mann had to change the film several times and remove scenes that did not suit Studio Paramount. Dialogue scenes that were not removed in the European version mostly fell victim to the cut. The film therefore seems slightly fragmented, the music and sound show jumps, as the interventions took place after the film had already been completed. Rumor has it that the director aimed for a running time of between three and four hours.
- Michael Mann was not happy with the end of the film, which is why he had an edited version made for US television with a happy ending .
- For his role of Romanian history expert Dr. Cuza visited Ian McKellen Bucharest and prepared in London with a dialect coach, but director Michael Mann instructed him at the start of filming to forego dialect and make the character sound more Chicago- like.
- The budget was six million US dollars , but the film only grossed a fraction of that in the first few weeks, and was therefore considered a flop at the box office.
- The Keep was filmed in Blaenau Ffestiniog and Llanberis in County Gwynedd in North Wales , as well as at Shepperton Studios in Shepperton , England.
- The music comes from the German electronic formation Tangerine Dream with the line-up Edgar Froese / Christopher Franke / Johannes Schmoelling and is still the most popular film music of the band.
Reviews
"A horror fairy with elaborate trick effects, whose striking amalgamation of horror genre cinema and cheap war film clichés reveals a lack of instinct and a terrifying lack of (historical) awareness."
"The feverish dream-like atmosphere of the film draws you - skilfully supported by Tangerine Dream's pulsating, ethereal film music [...] - hypnotically under its spell with an action that in turn seems to obey the eerie, supernatural laws of that fortress."
“After the flop at the US box office, initially banned to video […], the theatrical version proves to be spooky, gruesome and at times captivating. But Mann's attempt to superimpose an analysis of what makes fascism so attractive just doesn't work in the context of this cartoon format in the look of a heavy metal booklet. "
“The clichéd war film elements would not have been necessary. - Technically complex, great photos "
Award
- 1984 nominated for the Saturn Award of the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in the USA in the category Best Horror Film .
Web links
- The Keep the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The uncanny power in the lexicon of international film
- The Keep at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Fansite dedicated to the reconstruction of the long version (English / French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Notes by Ian McKellen - Comments from Ian McKellan to the shooting of The Keep (English)
- ^ Catholic Institute for Media Information and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (ed.): Lexicon of international films . Cinema, television, video, DVD . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-86150-455-3 , p. 3315 .
- ↑ Cavett Binion: The Keep. In: All Movie Guide . Retrieved on April 27, 2008 (English): “The film's fever-dream-logic casts a hypnotic spell - ably assisted by Tangerine Dream's pulsating, ethereal music […] - with a story that seems to play by the keep's own eerie supernatural rules . "
- ^ The Keep. (No longer available online.) In: Time Out. Formerly in the original ; accessed on June 20, 2011 (English): “[…] first buried in video distribution after it flopped in the US […]. Resurrected for cinema screening, it proves to be eerie, chilling, at times engaging. But Mann's attempt to superimpose an analysis of the emotional attraction of Fascism simply doesn't work within the Heavy Metal magazine cartoon format. "
- ↑ The uncanny power. In: TV feature film . Retrieved April 27, 2008 .