Prince Of Darkness (1987) Blu-ray review

Without a doubt, horror auteur John Carpenter enjoyed one of the greatest runs in the history of the genre, spanning from his under siege gang tale Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and ending with the Roddy Piper classic They Live in 1988. His results after that period are generally considered a mixed bag, but the films he made during those 12 years are sacrosanct to horror fans. But even within that winning streak, with so many films to choose from some people are inevitably going to dismiss a couple as sub-par - and for some reason that always seems to be the fate for Prince of Darkness (1987). Lately, however, fans seem to be getting a little more forgiving. It seems like an obvious analogy, but some of Carpenter’s films really are like a fine wine, only gaining more appreciation with age. The Thing (1982) was a total bomb when it was released, and now many fans (myself included) put it at the top of their favorite horror films. So, now, some 25 years later, Prince can be seen as more than “that movie with liquid Satan” thanks to Scream Factory’s new blu-ray release.

Prince of Darkness was made at a time when Carpenter was interested in theoretical physics and quantum mechanics, and he decided it would be a novel concept to present themes of good and evil contained within matter and anti-matter. For the few who don’t know the film’s plot, a priest (Donald Pleasence) is given possession of a key that unlocks a door behind which an ancient, swirling liquid evil is contained within a massive cylinder. The priest arranges for Professor Birack (Victor Wong) and some of his students to stay the weekend at the church so they can study his findings. Once they arrive, strange vagrants surround the church and prevent anyone from leaving. Everyone also begins to experience a bizarre, shared dream that warns them of an apocalyptic future. The mysterious liquid begins to leak from the container, infecting some of the students with its contents and causing them to act violently. Kelly (Susan Blanchard) is afflicted with a bruised mark on her arm, and eventually she is possessed by the full contents of the container, bringing to life the Anti-Christ himself. Only a few survivors are left to battle Satan’s forces before he can bring his father, the Anti-God, back into the world.

Carpenter considers this film as the second in his “apocalypse trilogy” (the other two are The Thing and 1995’s In the Mouth of Madness). Although all three have vastly differing plots, they each share an ending that suggests mankind’s future may not be so bright. Prince presents a lot of intrigue by employing a plot that isn’t needlessly nebulous. Even John himself admits he doesn’t know what some things in the film are supposed to mean. And that’s a good thing, because not everything always has to be explained away. I’ve often found the scariest horror films are the ones where nobody is safe and everything seems like a threat. Here, we’ve got worms and bugs and beetles scaling the walls, a group of nefarious homeless people who seem to spring up out of nowhere to attack, an evil liquid that shoots in people’s mouths like Satan’s personal Super Soaker, a man made of bugs delivering a cryptic message, and the embodiment of Satan which not even Donald Pleasence’s ax can defeat.

Speaking of which, I have to give credit to Blanchard for making that nearly-silent performance as the Anti-Christ so memorable. As if that grotesque, runny, bloody, half-melted skin-falling-of-the-face make-up wasn’t almost enough to make a man dry heave, the sense of wonder she can elicit just by using her eyes added another element to that character. Satan hasn’t been fully formed in around seven million years or so according to the movie, and Blanchard plays the role like a newborn with a profound sense of power. And when her eyes widen, making the whites stand out amongst a bloody mess of red, it looks very goddamn creepy. Big props also to an uncredited Mark Shostrom for handling the gruesome duties on Blanchard’s rotten face. I remember seeing her face as a massive fold-out poster in Fangoria’s Bloody Best back in the ‘90s and the image stuck with me ever since.

Casting was always a strong suit for Carpenter as well, and while we don’t get a Kurt Russell or a Roddy Piper here we do get one Jameson Parker and, with that, one damn fine mustache. Seriously, did someone in makeup put a wig on a NY strip steak and glue it to his lip? I’ll bet that push broom has swept more than a few corners clean. Parker might be one of the few leading men to be upstaged by his own facial hair. He’s a fine leading man, mildly charismatic, but he’s also got a bit of a creeper vibe to him. His early come-ons to Catherine (Lisa Blount) are awkward, but then I guess he is supposed to be a bit of a nerd here, right? Pleasence is here for gravitas, nothing more. Other than saying, “Hey guys, here’s this evil liquid I found”, there isn’t a lot for him to do in the film. He spends half the movie hiding and reading his bible. Peter Jason has his Carpenter debut here, his first of seven films they did together, and he mostly provides comic relief. He’s one of those great character actors that round out a picture and elevate it. Dennis Dun had been seen previously in Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and he plays his character here with the same frantic energy and horn dog nature we got in that film.

As a huge Alice Cooper fan, can I just say how fantastic it was seeing him in a horror movie I love? Just two years earlier he starred in Monster Dog (1985), which is only worth watching for the two music videos he performs. To give you an idea of how bad it is if you haven’t seen it, the director is Claudio Fragasso. Yes, the guy who did Troll 2 (1990). Anyway, Cooper got involved because his manager, Shep Gordon was a producer on the film and suggested Alice record a song for the movie. He did, and then he wound up playing the “leader” of the homeless people, eventually using one of his own stage props to impale a victim who also happened to be listening to the song Cooper recorded for the film.

Prince of Darkness contains many of the themes and settings that Carpenter liked to employ – the church’s forced isolation and confined setting, paranoid, mistrust, a small outnumbered group fighting against many, and an ending that suggests things aren’t going to just go back to being how they once were. This film has one of those powerful endings that knows exactly when to cut, leaving viewers’ brains in a scramble trying to hypothesize what happens next. It’s a vastly underrated film, and now thanks to Scream Factory we get it served up on blu-ray with healthy upgrades in both picture and sound, as well as enough extras to keep Satan occupied through the next millennia.

Carpenter shot this film using wide-angle lenses in an anamorphic format, which often results in some softness around the edges. Make no mistake; this is the best the film has ever looked. There’s a moderate layer of grain over the image, preserving the filmic aesthetic. Fine detail receives a big boost over the previous DVDs, as exemplified in the cracks on Pleasence’s face, or the ability to count the individual hairs that make-up Parker’s luxurious flavor saver. An occasional problem with films being seen in HD is that make-up work or other effects lose their magic under the scrutiny of hi-def, but thankfully the only element that’s made more apparent is the matte work used in the beginning. The palette used is fairly dark and devoid of bright colors, but this disc has no problem making sure everything is delineated and crisp. Black levels likewise hold up well, allowing for detail to appear even through shadow. The audio comes with both 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD MA offerings. The multi-track is the better choice, allowing the full range of Carpenter and Howarth’s incredible score room to breathe through every available speaker. The rear channels provide nice support to the front mix, enveloping listeners with a chilling ambiance.

Don’t let the back cover fool you, since it erroneously states the disc includes only a commentary with Carpenter, some new interviews, and a trailer. Fact is, there is much more to the disc. Fans will be extremely pleased. The audio commentary should sound familiar to those who owned the Momentum Region 2 DVD. This is a direct port of that track, featuring Carpenter alongside actor Peter Jason, and it’s another winner. Jason is infectiously funny, hardly stopping for a beat between zingers, anecdotes, and questions for Carpenter. There’s a lot of talk about how he directs scenes and actors, what he tries to achieve in scoring the film, and how he views some of the aspects of this movie. Highly recommended for fans. Sympathy for the Devil is a ten-minute interview with John Carpenter, where he discusses his influences on this movie, how it all came about, location scouting, as well as acknowledging that maybe the opening credits are a bit lengthy. Alice at the Apocalypse is another ten-minute interview, this one with legendary shock rocker Alice Cooper. He discusses how film appeals to him, how he got involved with this picture, and the cult status it has attained. The Messenger is a 12-minute interview with special visual effects supervisor Robert Grasmere, who also plays the role of Frank (the “I’ve got a message for you…” guy). He initially was hired on just to do effects, but one night Carpenter asked him if he could act and he said yes. The guy was clearly thrilled beyond belief, still sounding struck by how awesome it was to have his own stunt double as well as a trailer with his name on it. Hell on Earth – A Look at the Film’s Score is a 10-minute piece that finds composer Alan Howarth talking about his work with Carpenter. John knows what he wants and he runs the ship, so it was Alan’s job to be the engineer and see that his vision was preserved. Alternate Opening for TV Version runs for around seven minutes; the major difference being that this presents the film as a dream of Brian’s. Sean Clark’s ever-popular Horror’s Hallowed Grounds pops up here as well, running for 13 minutes we get a rundown on all of the major locations used in the film alongside Clark’s usual parodies and constant humor. All I know is whoever came up with the mustache gag at the end is a damn genius. Trailers & Radio Spots contains one of the former and two of the latter. A Still Gallery runs for around 4 minutes and showcases many behind-the-scenes and publicity shots. Finally, an easy-to-find Easter Egg appears on the second page of extras. Click it to access a 12-minute interview with John Carpenter, as moderated by Brian Collins, at Screamfest 2012 where he talks in depth about Prince of Darkness.

As usual, feel free to flip your cover art right around to display the original key art beneath your fancy new-art slipcover. I’m not a huge fan of “everything but the sink” artwork, but this one works well - mainly because Jameson Parker’s thigh tickler is given prominent placement. Scream/Shout! Factory are doing everything in their power to massacre fans’ wallets this year, and their latest release of this underrated ‘80s classic is a necessary addition to all shelves. As if it wasn’t enough to provide the best audio and video presentation the film has ever received, they go and dump a big pile of supplements right on top of it. Buy without hesitation, because this is THE definitive release for Prince of Darkness.

Day Of The Dead (1985) Blu-ray review

I hope this doesn’t sound too harsh to some (although I have a feeling it won’t), but I sometimes find myself wishing George A. Romero had never returned to the zombie sub-genre after completing Day of the Dead (1985). Romero built this sandbox, he’s the godfather of gut-munching zombie horror; however, few can argue his recent trilogy of films is even closer to what he wrought starting back in 1968. Night of the Living Dead is the seminal film for zombies. Period. He wrote the blueprint, he made the template. Dawn of the Dead (1978) is what I consider to be a perfect horror film. George nailed it, no question. Everything about that film works on numerous levels. Day, though, seems to be a toss-up for a lot of fans. It can’t be faulted for effects and gore, but the characters have always been a point of contention for some. Personally, I’ve always liked the exaggerated, maniacal personalities many of the lead actors possess. This world isn’t like Dawn, where you could still get lucky and find new people to join up with for survival. In Day, these people just might be all that’s left. According to an estimate by the good Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty), the dead outnumber us roughly 400,000:1 with no signs of slowing down. Naturally, everyone is a little bit on edge.

Day of the Dead maintains the singular setting of its predecessor, only this time the walls are even tighter with our main group huddled deep below the Earth in a mine; a sprawling, labyrinthine cave that looks more like a massive tomb. Dr. Sarah Bowman (Lori Cardille) and Dr. Logan are tirelessly working to find a cure to the zombie epidemic using corpses brought down from up top. Their efforts are made doubly difficult by the presence of Col. Rhodes (Joe Pilato) and his rowdy bunch of troops. Logan’s procedure seem to have worked on one zombie, a “fast” learner named Bub (Howard Sherman), but the surgery is too difficult and esoteric to ever provide a viable means of stopping the outbreak. The possibility of a cure or solution seems dire, especially to the audience, making this less a film about ending the current apocalypse and more a study of how humanity cracks under the pressure of knowing we’re next on the extinction list.

Two aspects of this film that are undeniably stellar are Tom Savini’s gruesome makeup FX work, and composer John Harrison’s score. First off, I know some people who absolutely hate this score and, honestly, I just don’t get it. Harrison previously provided the tunes for Romero’s Creepshow, which was also graced with a chillingly horrific soundtrack. His work here is both ominous and slightly playful, sounding like a mix between synth music to signal the apocalypse and something you’d be listening to on a Jamaican beach, which seems especially fitting given how the film ends. Of course, some of it does sound like it was culled from Jan Hammer’s Miami Vice tapes, too, so I can see where there might be issues for certain listeners. Savini was in rare form here, delivering what are arguably some of his greatest effects to date. He had a stellar team behind him, including current KNB heads Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger. Not to knock Dawn in any way, but the zombie and victim work there can’t hold a candle to the ultra-realistic, hyper-gory palette he brought to life here. From the opening of the film, where we’re introduced to a stumbling, blood-drooling Dr. Tongue, the picture hardly lets up from one stunning, shocking set piece after the next, culminating in the classic Romero full-body pull-aparts fans crave.

Ok, enough yammering about the film. You all know what you’re in for by now. Let’s get to the real reason why you’re here – how does this disc stack up to the countless editions that have come before it? More importantly, how’s the “all-new transfer” that’s touted virtually all over the packaging? It’s good – in fact, about as good as this film is ever going to get – but it’s not perfect, so upgrade accordingly. The previous blu-ray released by Anchor Bay was soft and a bit less detailed, a hindrance due to the minor DNR that was applied in mastering the disc. Many fans may have purchased the region-free blu-ray released by Arrow in the U.K., but that release, too, is plagued by DNR. A side-by-side comparison of Arrow’s disc versus Scream’s shows that grain is almost scrubbed free in the prior’s edition, losing any semblance of detail in the image. Scream Factory’s release is the best possible presentation given the limitations inherent in the source. Day is never going to look reference-quality. The film was shot in a mine, with varying light sources, and while it was all done on 35mm the fact remains that it was a low-budget production and those roots will never recede - however, Scream has delivered the cleanest presentation that is clearly not tampered with in any way, aside from some contrast boosting. Whether or not it’s worth upgrading whatever disc you own currently depends entirely on your personal preference. Some people don’t mind DNR one bit. Hell, they may even love what it does, and so this release might not appeal to them. If you’re a serious fan of the film, though, then I’d suggest this edition if only because you’ll be seeing it as close to the original presentation as possible. Grain is present throughout, although it never gets heavy enough to become obtrusive. Only the optical shots are heavily grainy since that’s just how opticals look. Fans will also be happy to hear that this release finally contains the unaltered mono mix in DTS-HD. The missing and changed effects that were found on both AB and Arrow’s releases have been reinstated here, allowing fans to hear the theatrical track for the first time in lossless audio. It’s a limited track that works hard to pump out all the required sounds, sometimes to the detriment of the intended range. This is how it was mixed, and any multi-channel audio tracks are simply faux to give listeners a bit more oomph.

If you’ve bought the old Anchor Bay DVD, the special edition Anchor Bay DVD, the Anchor Bay blu-ray, and the Arrow blu-ray, chances are you know that with every new edition of Day comes a few new bonus features along with the loss of a few. This release from Scream Factory is no different, featuring a bit of the old and a bit of the new. On the recent side of things is World’s End: The Legacy of Day of the Dead. a full-length documentary, presented in HD, that runs for around an hour and a half. This lengthy doc features many of the usual suspects – Romero, Savini, Nicotero, Pasquale Buba, Howard Sherman, Pilato, etc. – along with a few faces we don’t see so much – Cardille, Gary Klar – all of whom reminisce fondly about their time on set. Some of Savini’s on-set footage is spliced in here, too. The documentary’s only problem is that much of what’s discussed has been said other places a hundred times before. I’d call this “definitive” only in the sense that most of the anecdotes and information about the shoot have finally been collected in one piece since everyone available spills their guts. I mean, how many times can we hear about the fridge going out and the pig guts spoiling, right? It isn’t that the information isn’t of value, just that this piece runs very long and it doesn’t feel like it’s covering any new ground. I loved it for the candid recollections and to hear a fresh perspective from old faces, but it brings no new shit to light, so to speak. Two audio commentaries have been ported over from the Anchor Bay blu-ray, the first with writer/director George A. Romero, special effects artist Tom Savini, production designer Cletus Anderson, and actress Lori Cardille. Too many people on one track can sometimes be a bit much, but everyone seems to get a word in when the time is right here. The second track is with filmmaker Roger Avary. He’s a big fan of the film. I don’t know who tracks like this appeal to, frankly. I only care to hear from those involved in making the movie; I don’t really care about the first time a young Roger Avary watched it. Right? Behind the Scenes Footage from Special Effects Creator Tom Savini’s Archives is the same 30-minute featurette that appeared on the previous blu-ray. Presented in full-frame, this is the footage Savini shot of the film’s many gory set pieces. Wampum Mine Promotional Video is an eight-minute ad for the services provided by the mine. No mention of facility use during a zombie holocaust. Underground: A Look Into the Day of the Dead Mines follows Ed Demko (is this guy a fan? no clue) through the mine locations, although a lot of it is Ed posing and reciting film lines with blurry shots of the mine in the background. It’s a bit like Horror’s Hallowed Grounds lite. It’s unfortunate they couldn’t have lowered Sean Clark down into that mine for his usual segment. A selection of Theatrical Trailers and TV Spots have also been included. Finally, there is a Still Gallery containing images including: Behind the Scenes, Day of the Dead Locations, Posters & Lobby Cards and Miscellaneous. The disc loses some features from both the Anchor Bay and Arrow releases, so completists are going to want to hang on to those.

This release from Scream Factory can’t be called the definitive edition of Day of the Dead because it still fails to collect all of the available bonus features in one convenient location. I know that probably isn’t even possible (well, with enough money anything is), but I’m sure fans are just tired of having to re-buy their favorite films over and over, filling their shelves with yet another copy acquired for a handful of new extras. At least this release goes the extra mile in delivering an image that presents the film as accurately as possible, outshining both previous releases by an appreciable, albeit minor, degree. The new features are well-produced, featuring recent interviews and collected tales, but in bringing not much new information to the table many fans may find even a lengthy documentary doesn’t satisfy their hunger. For those who don’t own any prior releases (there has to be at least a few of you), and even those that do, this stands for now as the best release available.

Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

 You may be asking yourself, "Why, of all the films in the legendary Friday the 13th franchise, would this jackass pick one of the most reviled?" And you'd be right to do so. But hear me out. I am a product of 1981, and on this film's release date - Friday, August 13th, 1993 - I was a mere 11 years of age. By that point, however, I'd drunk in every tale of Jason Voorhees on a nearly obsessive level. My favorite film has always been Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984). Most fans of the series would be likely to agree with me since it is arguably the best one, but I also had to good fortune to have seen it when I was really young. And it scared the fucking shit out of me. Once that dread wore off, and I attained my Horror Fanboy Badge of Desensitization, I rabidly consumed every film I could get my little hands on. This wasn't terribly easy back in the analog age, though. I had to resort to sneaking rentals of the series on VHS down at the local Wherehouse (god, I miss that place), where my Dad would distract my Mom long enough to let me get what I came for. Or, barring that, I'd have to make due with whatever hacked-up version was showing on cable late at night. Point being, I had to be crafty and sly if I wanted to get my fix.

Which leads me to Jason Goes To Hell. I only have vague recollections of seeing ads for the film. I'm not even 100% sure if I caught a trailer anywhere, but that hot-as-shit poster spoke to me. It told me to get my Jason-lovin' ass into a theater. The problem was that MY parents wouldn't take 11-year-old me to see R-rated Jason. But my friend Donny's parents were more than happy to oblige.And so, thanks to their own brand of lax parenting, I was able to finally see my first Friday the 13th flick in a theater.

And that's the problem.

I'm sure all of us have movies near and dear to us that, in a more objective setting, would be rightly torn to shreds by critics and fans alike. Hell, you'd probably join right in. But you can't. Because you watched that damn movie when you were still young enough not to know any better. And it wound up sticking with you. Chances are you have many of these films in your roster.

For better or worse, JGTH is one of those for me. I just barely understood how much it sucked in my adolescent mind. For starters, that fucking poster. That thing was an eye-catching, demonically fiery slice of horror ephemera that could have convinced any Friday fan to see the movie. Jason's mask, now all chromed-out and looking rather spiffy, with some weird snake/worm/baby graboid demon thing slithering out of it, presented in front of a wall of flame. Sounds bitchin', no? Except none of that is in there. Sure, there's some shitty little creature that is probably supposed to be the thing on the poster, but where's that damn mask? I was hoping that Jason, now without a mask thanks to his toxic sludge bath in the Big Apple, would manage to find himself with the mask he's always deserved. You know, like how Leatherface earned that fucking magnificent chainsaw in Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990). Freddy even got an updated glove (which, frankly, was totally overdone and ridiculous) in Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). [Side note: I took a group of friends to see that film at the Fashion Island cinema in Newport - this would've been my 13th birthday - and I hated it then; still hate it now. I just don't get why anyone would give it a pass. Have you seen Bob Shaye's acting? My god...]

So Jason doesn't get his mask we were (sort of) promised. The film also neglects to mention how ol' sackhead got back to Crystal Lake from the sewers of Manhattan. I realize canon elements such as this aren't all that important. We fans just want him to get back to doing his day job, regardless of however the current filmmakers want to get him there.  I thought it would've been cool to pull a reverse of his exit from Crystal Lake as used in the Jason vs. Leatherface comic (which features insanely killer covers from Simon Bisley), where a submerged Voorhees is scooped up by a waste company cleaning up the lake and dropped into a barrel, which is then loaded onto a train out of town. Here, they could've had Jason barreled up as part of someone dumping NYC's toxic waste, at which point he'd be "disposed of" in Crystal Lake and - BAM! - he's back. See, easy. 

Anyway, I was shocked when the extremely stereotypical (even for a F13th film) opening turned into... the FBI blowing him up? Uh, isn't this supposed to happen before the end credits, guys? I came to see Jason, and 7 minutes later he's a side of smoked brisket. Great. You know the rest... coroner eats his black heart, dude starts spewing up blood and moaning like the shark in Jaws: The Revenge, he's now possessed by Jason. Spew and repeat a few more times until we finally get the big guy back in the picture with a whopping 11 minutes left in the film. Whereupon he gets his ass kicked by the least-convincing tough guy lead (John D. LeMay) I've probably ever seen. And then he goes to hell. And then Kane Hodder's arm, playing the role of Freddy Krueger, snatches his mask.

Once it was over, I had that sinking pit of disappointment in my stomach. That same feeling I got after my first viewing of Friday the 13th V: A New Beginning, when I learned an EMT had been playing Jason Fauxhees the entire time. I felt cheated. Clearly, with the film's tried-and-true formula more worn than Jason himself, the filmmakers wanted to do something noble and inject fresh life into the decaying series. They obviously forgot this is often met with extreme fanboy hostility. At least screenwriter Dean Lorey will admit they may have been wrong. He penned a great read on the film's production history that all fans should read - check it out here. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and director Adam Marcus' film is now seen as one of the worst Crystal Lake has to offer.

So why the hell do I like it? More than anything: it takes me back to a happy place and time. It reminds me of the people I saw it with, the now-long gone theater I saw it at (the old El Toro 1-2-3/4-5-6!), and a time in my life when new horror - regardless of probable quality - genuinely excited me. The cockamamie mythology retroactively ascribed to the Voorhees family is embarrassingly horrid. There's a Voorhees mansion. Jason is actually some kind of sperm-y red demon thing that can only be killed by a Voorhees. He's got a sister that never received a mention until now. Evil Dead's Necronomicon is curiously - and conspicuously - placed in one of the main rooms. They have to use a... magic... dagger... to kill him. Christ, typing this out, it all sounds so cliche and callow. Magic dagger? You gotta be fuckin' kidding me...

There's at least some good gore. You wouldn't have seen it in the theatrical cut, but once the 4-minutes-longer director's cut was released on home video there was a noticeable amount of crimson glory restored. The most glaring omission to Jason's body count - wait, does it still count as Jason if it's just a guy possessed by Jason? God, that sounds so stupid... - was the infamous tent spike sex scene bifurcation. In a somewhat ironic twist, that scene never existed before the film started test screenings. Audiences complained there wasn't enough of the expected teen sex and drug use the series was known for, so they added in a scene where Stephen picks up a trio of hitchhikers and drops them off by the lake. He declines an invite to stay with the single cute blonde, they all die. And the one who gets it the worst - a girl just about to enjoy a post-orgasm decompression - gets spiked through the chest and viciously torn in half. It's one of the goriest, nastiest deaths in the series. That might not have been true if the MPAA hadn't torn most of Jason's adventures in the '80s to pieces, but they did.

I also have a bit of a soft spot for Harry Manfredini's score. After eight films of the same ki-ki-ki/ma-ma-ma and overused cues, JGTH shook up the compositions to produce something that works quite well in the context of the film. I'd love to have a copy of the score for myself, so I can hear how it plays without the aid of a film overlaid. Manfredini, oddly enough, turned in his worst score for the next installment, Jason X, which is just atrocious. I don't know what the hell happened, but whatever sound he was going for there he failed epically in achieving. Or maybe he succeeded and I just hate it.

Despite the film clearly blowing chunks, I can still watch it whenever it's on. Maybe I'm a bit of a masochist, maybe I'm too nostalgic for crappy things. It's never one of my go-to films in the series, that's for sure. But there's just something there, for me. I find a certain comfort in watching it, and it isn't half bad if you can view it and pretend it isn't really a Friday film, which is fairly easy since you almost never see Jason. Of course, when you're viewing anything through an old set of rose-tinted lenses there's bound to be some elevation to the material.

The Keep (1983)

There's a seemingly endless list in my head comprised of countless film titles that I've been anticipating seeing for ages. I'm not talking about films I want to see, per se, so much as these are films that have a storied and/or controversial history which makes them even more appealing. One such title has been director Michael Mann's disowned 1983 Nazis-versus-ancient-demon picture, The Keep. To be perfectly honest, as aware as I've been about its troubled production and heavily edited final release form, the bulk of my interest lay in hearing Tangerine Dream's score. The group has been responsible for imbuing pictures with a life far beyond what many "normal" composers could achieve, simply by virtue of the fact that their themes and instrumentation are often second-to-none. I still think the score for Ridley Scott's truncated theatrical version of Legend (1985) is outstanding, fully elevating the film to a higher plane even maestro Jerry Goldsmith couldn't match with his score to the director's cut of the picture. It also didn't help that I've heard nothing but praise for the soundtrack, even more so than for the film.

Don't think I'm discounting Michael Mann's name here. Without delving too deep into my thoughts, know that I am a HUGE fan of his filmography. Except for his HBO series, Luck, which was fucking dreadful. Not sure what went wrong there, but part of it was likely due to the fact that watching jackasses bet on horse races redefines ennui. But I digress. It's also relatively well-known that he has more or less disowned this film, which (if I had to guess) is almost entirely due to the fact that he hasn't ever re-cut it to his original intentions. Mann is one of those filmmakers who loves to re-edit his movies, sometimes years after the picture has found an approving audience (or not).  Sometimes he even pulls off sly edits, with no press given to them, by removing or adding small bits of footage because he is clearly a fastidious auteur obsessed with the minutia of his films. I'm fairly certain Heat has been slightly tweaked for each subsequent home video release, as just one example. Mann's original cut for The Keep was rumored to run around three and a half hours in length, which is a far cry from the current running time of 96 minutes. To prove just how much he hates his own movie, Mann successfully blocked Paramount from releasing it on DVD in 2004, although another reason for that release's cancellation was a dispute between Tangerine Dream and Virgin Records, too.

Enough with the history lesson, pal. How's the damn movie? Intriguing and dark, despite clear evidence that it has been substantially altered. It opens with Nazi officer Klaus Woermann, played by the always intimidating Jürgen Prochnow, leading his party of German troops to a desolate village. Surely, he has come to crush these peasants with his iron f- oh, wait, he's being nice and polite to everyone. What kind of sick film is this? Klaus sets up camp inside an old citadel (the titular "keep"), whereby he is instructed to "NEVER TOUCH THE CROSSES" by an emphatic, enigmatic servant to the keep, played by Wild at Heart's William Shepard. These Nazis are greedy fuckers, though. So, sure enough, a couple of them start trying to pry off a cross made of silver when suddenly - WHOOSH! (That was the sound of ancient evil being unleashed). Something has been awoken in the keep, and it is absolutely destroying the shit out of these Nazis. Fearing Klaud may not be up to the task of keeping his men safe, the SS troops send in Eric Kaempffer - a subdued but cunning Gabriel Byrne - to get a hold of the situation. Using sensitive and investigative SS tactics, Kaempffer threatens to kill five villagers for every one Nazi that dies until he gets an answer as to what's doing the killing. Even though Klaus has told him the villagers don't know. Hey, maybe that old servant dude knows! He's been tending to the keep for his entire l- oh, wait, Kaempffer just shot him and his two sons dead. Well, shit. Guess it's up to this mysterious holy man, Glaeken (Scott Glenn, with a goddamn majestic pair of blue eyes), to combat whatever old-school evil is up to nefarious deeds.

I got sucked into the film's mystery quite easily once the picture got rolling. Mann had already displayed his trademark abilities - long, lingering shots; deft camera work; fantastic shot composition - in his directorial debut, the utterly brilliant Thief, starring James Caan, so it's not like he made this film still rocking his directorial training wheels. In fact, his style is a major reason why the film manages to work as well as it does. In lesser hands, this could have been a cheap looking, unspectacular monster movie. The keep is an ominous building, standing like a massive monolith above this shanty town. The mysteries surrounding it spark interest, and the more we learn as an audience the more it feels like the film is building up to something big.

Only it doesn't. Not exactly. Once this "evil" is unleashed, it turns out to be a roided-out version of Uncle Frank from Hellraiser. The more souls this big beast claims, the more complete his physical appearance becomes. I do have to admit that the demon design, supervised by Alien's Nick Allder, isn't all that bad. It's right on that borderline of being a big, blocky meathead, but the sculpt - and some well-placed lighting - ends up lending the creature a foreboding visage.  

"I've been trying to cut down on my carb intake."

 

Scott Glenn's mysterious wanderer, Glaeken, seems to have taken the brunt of the editing massacre. Very little is known about him. Maybe that was intentional, though I'd like to think Mann wanted to build him up to be a little more than a pretty set of (contact lensed) eyes who bangs a concentration camp victim's daughter within moments of meeting her. The only thing we really know for sure is that he can combat whatever evil is trying to escape the keep. Once he does, however, the film's big climax ends in a very anti-climactic fashion. The writing is on the walls; you can see what Mann likely wanted to do here, but lack of final edit over the finished film means that we probably won't ever get to see his true vision. Even in this truncated form, it's not a bad film by any means. And Tangerine Dream fans will undoubtedly dig on the score. I hope that a company like Shout! can somehow obtain the rights and see that this film is given its due.