Sunday, May 04, 2014

Movies by year: 1983

(Beware, spoilers ahead)

Another good year for the cinema, 1983 brought us Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie as two very stylish vampires in The Hunger; William Hurt donned a big furry hat and a glum expression for the Russian murder mystery Gorky Park and joined his college friends for a cottage weekend in The Big Chill; Build Me Up, Buttercup was put to good use in the caveman comedy Luggage Of The Gods (a personal stupid favourite); the trilogy of six (?) ended with Star Wars VI: Return Of The Jedi; Ralphie got his Red Rider BB Gun in A Christmas Story; Christopher Walken warned that the ICE was gonna BREAK in The Dead Zone; and space race heroes were born in The Right Stuff.

But I've got a gloomier one for you this time:

The Keep


Such a great atmosphere piece. Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, Gabriel Byrne and Jürgen Prochnow are excellent in this weird tale of somewhere best avoided.

It's WWII a Romanian village in the mountains is occupied by German forces. They station themselves in the Keep, a castle-like structure the villagers avoid. While there, several soldiers deface the walls believing the nickel crosses imbedded in them are made of silver – and meet an untimely end at the hands of an entity their interference releases.

An old man and his daughter are brought to the keep to attempt to decipher the writing on the walls and find an answer. Meanwhile, believing the villagers are to blame, an SS force is sent to exact punishment.

Into the midst of all of this comes the mysterious Glaeken, ready to fight the evil entity. But what deals have already been made?

This is a great flick – if you haven't seen it yet, try to get hold of an original release – later releases replaced the amazing Tangerine Dream soundtrack...

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