There’s an urban legend in film buff circles that, a few years ago, during a major retrospective of the films of Michael Mann, the great director turned up to tech check every movie from 1981’s Thief to 2015’s Blackhat. Every film, that is, except for one: 1983’s The Keep, his sophomore effort and his bitterest disappointment. Hampered by the death of visual effects supervisor Wally Veevers and then butchered by Paramount executives, it’s a fraction of the film that Mann envisioned. But that fraction is still a strange, dark monument: a horror that contends with the idea of picking the lesser evil as a German Wehrmacht Unit in occupied Romania finds itself caught between SS fanatics and an ancient spirit trapped within a castle’s stone walls. Those themes are given real depth by a heavy-hitter cast including Scott Glenn, Jürgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne, and Ian McKellen. Rarely screened for the last four decades (outside of one memorable 35mm showing at the Alamo Drafthouse over a decade ago), now Mann’s flawed masterpiece returns in 4K courtesy of Vinegar Syndrome. – Richard Whittaker
April 28 & 30
