Editorials
[It Came From the ‘80s] Ancient Evil and Troubled Production Within ‘The Keep’
The Keep is an early ‘80s horror film that’s never made it to DVD or Blu-ray, at least not stateside, for two big reasons; obtaining Tangerine Dream’s soundtrack rights has proven tricky, and writer/director Michael Mann (Collateral, Heat) has pretty much disowned the film. Mann envisioned the film to be an expressionistic, grown-up fairytale complete with dream-like qualities and a two-hour run time. Poor test screenings resulted in Paramount trimming the film down to a 96-minute run time, against Mann’s wishes, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg of the troubled production that makes The Keep such an odd standout in the catalog of ‘80s horror.
Adapted from a novel of the same name by F. Paul Wilson, The Keep is set in 1941 and tells of a group of Nazis taking refuge in an isolated castle in the Romanian mountains. When they inadvertently free an ancient evil from its prison within, an entity named Molasar, they turn to a Jewish historian to help them stop it from killing them all. In turn, it also sets ancient force of good Glaeken on a quest to face off against his foe one last time. It’s an interesting premise and easy to see why Mann would want to adapt it, except Mann didn’t really like the book. Remember that part about the director envisioning the film as dream-like and expressionistic? Made even less coherent by the major cuts to the run time, The Keep plays like a detached, incoherent battle between good and evil, except none of the characters really seem all that important. In the novel, Molasar is perceived as a vampiric creature throughout most of the narrative, only morphing into something else by the end.
Makeup effects supervisor and prosthetics designer Nick Maley (Krull, Lifeforce) had the extremely difficult task of creating the creature and makeup design for The Keep. Initially, Molasar was an intangible being who would gradually take a shape influenced by the setting during his appearances. This nondescript description gave Maley very little to work with in terms design, and it was complicated even further by Mann’s changing his mind on the creature, on occasion. It sure didn’t help that Mann wanted complete control over the development of the makeup and creature effects, wanting the design to look exactly like he pictured it.
The vision that Mann settled on for Molasar begins with the evil appearing as a ball of energy that slowly becomes more humanoid with every appearance. First Molasar looks mostly like a walking nervous system, next he has more skeletal forms, then muscles, until a strangely statuesque Golem-like final look. Maley and his team were also tasked with creating mechanical versions of Molasar, but the work went unused when Mann decided he wanted to see more of the creature on screen.
Since Molasar is a 7-foot-tall monster, that made the mechanical effects impossible to use, so he was turned into a man in a suit instead.
Two weeks into post-production, visual effects supervisor Wally Veevers (Superman, The Rocky Horror Picture Show) unexpectedly passed away, with still hundreds of effects needing to be completed and no one quite sure of Veevers’ original plans for them. Because of this, Mann wanted to re-do the ending, which originally was to be a massive special effects-driven battle between Molasar and hero Glaeken (Scott Glenn). But the production was already over budget and overlong, and Paramount wasn’t keen to grant more money. So, Mann had to go with a much simpler conclusion to his sprawling adult fairy tale.
It also meant scenes that would’ve shown the Nazis meeting grisly ends at the hands of Molasar went unfilmed.
There’s a lot about The Keep that should’ve worked. An impressive cast filled with names like Gabriel Byrne, Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, and Jürgen Prochnow, with Mann’s stunning visual style and a story based on a best-selling novel all had the makings for an event horror film. Yet it was Mann’s decision to opt for a phantasmagorical style of storytelling, indecisiveness on the main villain, and massive trimming of Mann’s two-hour film that resulted in a not very coherent movie centered around a not so impressive body-building Golem thing. Tangerine Dream’s score is a vital asset, though, and has helped the film amass a cult following over the years. We’ll likely never get to see the film Mann intended, which would have given Glaeken a happier ending and fleshed out a lot of the character work and relationships, so The Keep falls under the category of the story behind the film being much more interesting that the final film. As it stands, it’s the strange movie that marks the first and last time Mann dove into full-blown horror (He did direct Manhunter a few years later, but it’s crime-based and not in the same fantastical realm).
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
You must be logged in to post a comment.