The Keep (1983) (RM4k VS 1080p BluRay x256 HEVC 10bit AAC 2.0 Commentary HeVK) Michael Mann Scott Glenn Alberta Watson Jurgen Prochnow Robert Prosky Gabriel Byrne Ian McKellen William Morgan Sheppard Royston Tickner Michael Carter Wolf Kahler hq

The Keep (1983), directed by Michael Mann, Vinegar Syndrome 4k remaster, encoded in 10 bit HEVC with AAC sound, including original theatrical stereo, commentary track, and English SDH subtitles.

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085780/

Video encoded in two-pass 14.0 Mbps x265 10bit with the veryslow preset for archive quality image. Audio encoded separately with Apple AAC for the highest-quality AAC sound available. Subtitles converted to VobSub and repositioned.

Note : It's finally here! Something of a long-lost holy grail for lovers of obscure horror, previously only available on VHS and an Australian DVD release, as well as a not great UHD scan of a 35mm print, Michael Mann's The Keep isn't exactly a masterpiece, but it's a tantalizing, visually gorgeous, constantly interesting mess. A mix of war movie and Lovecraftian horror, and a dash of Indiana Jones, about an ancient demon released from its prison inside a mysterious fortress, and a seemingly immortal man who is destined to stand against it. The cast is also first rate, including Scott Glenn, who's apparently looked like an old man since he was young, Alberta Watson, Jürgen Prochnow, always good in stuff like this, Robert Prosky, Gabriel Byrne, very evil, and a quite young Ian McKellen.

1941, Romania, a group of German soldiers led by captain Woermann arrives in a small town in the Carpathians to take control of a strategically important mountain pass. The town is the location of an ancient, uninhabited fortress known as The Keep, where the Germans set up camp. When two of the soldiers try to loot a metallic icon from a wall, they release a ghostly entity which violently consumes them, and proceeds to feed on other soldiers of the next few days, starting to take physical form. A detachment of SS soldiers arrive to deal with supposed partisan activity, and their sadistic commander Kaempffer applies collective punishment on the villagers, assuming the soldiers' deaths to be the work of partisans, against Woermann's protests. The village priest urges the Germans to get an ailing Jewish historian, Cuza, from a nearby concentration camp, who helps decipher an Old Slavonic inscription on the keep's wall, but when the entity saves Cuza's daughter from rape by the German soldiers, and then cures Cuza of his debilitating illness, Cuza becomes its reluctant helper in its quest to completely release itself from what binds it to the keep. At the same time, a mysterious man named Glaeken arrives from Greece, having sensed the presence of the entity, and Cuza's daughter takes a liking to him, as the groups of Germans turn against each other, and the villagers start going insane from the demonic influence.

This is honestly a great-looking remaster. The color grading tends to orange-teal, which might be slightly revisionist, but not entirely out of tune with previous transfers which also show warm skin tones and cold backgrounds, and contrast, dynamic range, saturation, and detail are all excellent. The stereo track, which could have done with a remaster, also sounds fine, and the commentary track has a bunch of information about this troubled production.

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Note from HeVK