Overrated and overhyped

Load of rubbish!!

A Masterpiece!

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Dear Michael Mann, it is really sad that the studio messed up your film. I was wondering why more space was not given to the death of the soldiers. We are only shown the deaths of the first two soldiers. But more keep dying and I got to know about this through the exchanges between the top brass of Nazis. Then I read about the studio interference and realized the whole film was badly cut. It is a shame because the film is a visual treat. The long shot of the Keep's entrance, the tracking shots of the soldiers running through the Keep's corridors with the cross shining in the background and the shots of the foggy village were beautiful and unlike anything I have seen for a horror film. The background score by Tangerine Dream during the entry of the Nazis into the village might have inspired the score for Sicario. It was a horror film with a large canvas not unlike The Shining or Apocalypse Now. There were aspects of the film which were quite cheesy. Like Robert Prosky's get up and his exchanges with Ian Mckellen. And the special effects were nothing to write home about. I hope you release the three hour director's cut, Michael. Best Regards, Pimpin. (6/10)

I've wanted to write a review ever since this disaster came out, but that was years ago! Perfect example of how Hollywood wrecks an awesome book! I hope someday there will be another movie more true to the book, but I'm sure that's just wishful thinking! So much missing....Molasar's appearance, the climactic fight scene and Glaeken becoming mortal! I mean what the hell was Michael Mann thinking? No wonder this movie bombed when it was released! I read somewhere that F. Paul Wilson the author of the book hates this film and what was done to it. Now I know this review is about 32 or 33 years too late but now I can cross this off my list of stuff I meant to do a long long long time ago! Whew! I feel better now! LOL!

So many people here have come to this movie with modern eyes. Of course the SFX are going to look dated it was made 32 years ago! However, the movie is carried along (for the most part) by the visuals and the excellent (if mixed somewhat loudly) Tangerine Dream soundtrack.The story does seem to jump evidencing the loss of footage at some point and at someone's behest...I hope to see a Directors Cut one day if the "issues" with who/whatever has them ever get sorted. A new sound mix would be excellent to add more dynamic range to the audio, it seems a touch over compressed as was the style in the 80's.An unsettling movie somewhat let down by a chain of events starting with the death of the SFX head Wally Veevers. Add in some studio meddling and a whole bunch of other wrangling with Tangerine Dream and it's evident the movie isn't what it could have been.As for Paul F Wilson's opinion it's moot, as an author will very rarely think any adaptation lives up to what he envisioned.**The version from Netflix is currently the best quality anywhere in the wild**

I originally saw this not long after this was released on VHS and I loved it ever since. Unfortunately it never got the appreciation it deserved, probably because it differs greatly from the book which made the movie a bit hard to follow.A contingent of Nazi soldiers are making their way through Romania to control a mountain pass just after the start of operation Barbarossa, which was the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The Germans hold up in an old citadel/keep at the edge of a small Romanian village.On entering the keep, the commander, Jurgen Prochnow, notices the design of the interior in how the stone is rough on the outside but smooth on the inside, as if it was built in reverse. Unknown to them, the keep is designed as a prison for an ancient entity, Molasar. There are a number of "T-shaped" crosses that line the walls identified as being made of nickel helping to keep Molasar in place.One night one of the crosses starts to glow and a couple of soldiers believe that the cross is made of silver. They dig it out of the wall and this reveals a narrow passageway that leads into an immense cavern below the keep. The soldiers have unwittingly released Molasar and over the course of several days more soldiers are found killed. The Germans believe that all this is from resistance or partisan activity and a detachment of Einsatzkommandos, led by Gabriel Byrne, arrives to deal with this new threat, executing villagers as a deterrent. To make matters more confusing for them, they find a message on the wall and the local priest convinces them to send for a Jewish professor, Ian McKellen, who is currently being held in a concentration camp.Molasar ends up killing 2 soldiers that try to rape the professors daughter and this results in an uneasy alliance between the demon and then professor, going so far as to cure the professor of his illness. Meanwhile a man called Glaeken, located in Greece is alerted to Molasar's freedom and he makes his way to Romania to try and stop him before he's powerful enough to escape the confines of the keep. He carries with him a lance with a headpiece that is the same as the crosses in the walls of the keep.Molasar tries to use the professor to remove one of the crosses and take it outside as this will enable him to be finally free of the keep, however he is confronted by the German soldiers and commandos who are no match for Molasar's power. All of them are killed. Glaeken arrives and forces the demon back into his stony prison much to the dismay of the professor. Glaeken sacrifices himself by using his body to replace the main seal to keep Molasar in the keep.I must say that I loved this movie. Yes the pace is considered a bit too slow for a traditional horror movie and there are parts that are confusing for some, but it's not a standard horror movie. Its a shame that for the low budget in which this was made, it didn't even manage to break even, despite the quality of actors, yet like a lot of movies of this calibre it has a strong cult following. The film was panned by critics and also the author of the book of the same name, but the unusualness of the film is what is really interesting. This is well worth a look but irritatingly this has never been released on DVD or BluRay as far as I know but can still be watched online.