Michael Mann made a Nazi Vs. Demon Film called THE KEEP!?
In 1983 director Michael Mann, best known for directing films such as Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, and Public Enemies, made a supernatural World War II film called The Keep. The movie involved Nazis battling it out with a ancient Romanian wizard. The movie starred Sir Ian McKellen and Gabriel Byrne, but the film was so bad that it never got a DVD release.
The Keep is based on a novel by F.Paul Wilson, and it follows a group of Nazis who roll into the Carpathian Mountains in World War II. They discover a strange temple in a small village. The Germans unwittingly unleash a centuries-old sorcerer, who begins blowing up Nazis à la the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The evil Major Kaempffer (Byrne) brings in Jewish medievalist Dr. Theodore Cuza (McKellen) to discover the monster's weakness, a plan that is flawed from the get-go. Meanwhile, a vampire who we never see drink blood (Scott Glenn) descends upon the keep to defeat the wizard with your run-of-the-mill 1980s fantasy movie artifact.
Apparently the reason why this film has never been released on DVD is because it completely bombed at the box-office and with critics. We can't blame it all on Mann though. Apparently Paramount refused to provide the budget required to finish the film and rejected Mann’s first cut, which was more than three hours long. The current version remains seriously incomplete at 1 hour 33 minutes. I can only imagine how incoherent this film must have been.
This looks like it could have been a good film! I want to see it! You can watch the entire film on YouTube if you want! Here are a couple trailers and clips. Head on over to io9 for more details on the film!
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