The Keep Radu Molasar 3D print model

My take on Radu Molasar from cult classic The Keep 1983

Nazis are forced to turn to a Jewish historian for help in battling the ancient demon they have inadvertently freed from its prison.

THEY WERE ALL DRAWN TO THE KEEP. The soldiers who brought death. The father and daughter fighting for life. The people who have always feared it. And the one man who knows its secret... THE KEEP Tonight, they will all face the evil.

The Keep is a 1983 supernatural horror film written and directed by Michael Mann and starring Scott Glenn, Gabriel Byrne, Jürgen Prochnow, Alberta Watson, and Ian McKellen. Set in Romania during World War II, it follows a group of Nazi soldiers who unleash a malevolent supernatural force after setting up camp in an ancient stone fortress in the Carpathian Mountains. It is an adaptation of the 1981 novel of the same title by American writer F. Paul Wilson.[5] The musical score was composed by Tangerine Dream.

Filmed in Wales and at Shepperton Studios during the autumn of 1982, The Keep suffered numerous post-production issues, mainly the death of special effects supervisor Wally Veevers, who died before completing his work on the film. The film was also subject to significant editing troubles, as Mann's original director's cut ran 210 minutes in length, which its distributor, Paramount Pictures, mandated be cut to 120 minutes. After test screenings of the 120-minute version received unfavorable audience responses, the film was further truncated to its final 96-minute cut, which was released theatrically in December 1983.

Upon release, The Keep received mixed reviews from film critics, with many criticizing it for its unclear narrative, though it received some praise for its visual elements, while it performed poorly at the U.S. box office. Despite this, the film has gone on to develop a cult following in the years since its release.[5][6][7] Though it received home media release on video, the film went unreleased on DVD until 2020, when the Australian media company Via Vision released a remastered DVD edition.

Some fans have petitioned for a release of Mann's original director's cut,[8] which as of 2024, has never been made available.

PlotIn 1941 in Romania, following the commencement of Operation Barbarossa, a motorized Gebirgsjäger unit of the Wehrmacht, under the command of Captain Klaus Woermann, arrives at an uninhabited citadel – simply known as 'the Keep' – with the aim of taking control of the Dinu Pass in the Carpathian Mountains. Two soldiers, privates Lutz and Anton, attempt to loot a metallic icon within the keep but accidentally unleash a spectral entity which kills them. The being, known as Radu Molasar, proceeds to kill five more soldiers in the following days and begins to take corporeal form. A detachment of SS Einsatzkommandos, under the command of sadistic SD Sturmbannführer Erich Kaempffer, arrives to deal with what is thought to be Soviet partisan activity in a nearby village. He executes three civilians as collective punishment and takes another five as hostages, despite Woermann's protests.

At the instigation of the local village priest, Father Mihail Fonescu, the Germans retrieve an ailing Jewish historian, Theodore Cuza, from a concentration camp. Cuza deciphers a mysterious message written in Old Slavonic using the Glagolitic alphabet emblazoned on a wall of the citadel. Molasar saves the professor's daughter, Eva, from sexual assault by two Einsatzkommandos and cures Cuza of his debilitating scleroderma by touch. Cuza becomes indebted to the entity, who demands that Cuza remove a talisman from the keep so that Molasar can escape its confines.

Having remotely sensed Molasar's presence, a mysterious stranger named Glaeken Trismegestus arrives from Axis-occupied Greece, seducing Eva and incurring Cuza's ire. The malign power of Molasar begins to affect the villagers, seemingly driving them mad. A group of soldiers fire on Glaeken and force him into a ravine, but he is shown to still be alive. Kaempffer and Woermann clash over the former's sadistic crimes; Woermann furiously denounces the Nazis, claiming that the monster hunting them is a reflection of their evil. When their conversation is suddenly interrupted by the sound of horrible screams and machine-gun fire coming from the keep's inner courtyard, Woermann is shot and killed by Kaempffer. Afterwards, Kaempffer goes to the now-silent courtyard, only to find that the entire garrison of the citadel has been slaughtered by Molasar, and that all the military vehicles parked inside have been disabled.

Stumbling across the carnage of the courtyard, a terrified Kaempffer is killed when he is confronted by Molasar as Cuza goes to remove the talisman from the keep. When Eva attempts to prevent him from doing so, Cuza refuses Molasar's command to kill her. In response, Molasar returns Cuza to his diseased state. Glaeken arrives, retrieves the talisman and confronts Molasar.

After their battle, the latter is weakened and banished back into the innermost recesses of the keep. Glaeken is transformed in a storm of light and seals the aperture that freed Molasar, containing the entity within once more. The villagers, freed from Molasar's influence, escort Eva and Cuza away.