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).
Comics
‘Spider-Noir’ Comic Changes Explained: How the TV Series Reinvents Marvel’s Darkest Spider-Man
A little while back, I wrote an article chronicling the Hellraiser franchise’s affinity for Film Noir and touched on how that genre has, historically, always been connected to horror.
This connection can be observed in everything from the cannibalistic serial killers of Frank Miller’s Sin City to the disturbing criminal plots fueling neo-noir thrillers like Stuart Gordon’s underrated King of the Ants. That’s why it came as no surprise when I finally sat down to watch all eight episodes of Prime Video’s recently released Spider-Noir series and was confronted with plenty of classic horror tropes.
What did come as a surprise, however, was how showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot approached these horror elements when compared to the 2009 comic book that the show is based on. From the heavily altered rogue’s gallery to an equally terrifying yet completely different origin story for Nicolas Cage’s take on the webslinger, there are plenty of changes here that I feel might be of interest to genre fans.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to take a closer look at all the adjustments that Spider-Noir made to the story in order to bring this incarnation of Spider-Man to life in all of its monochromatic glory (unless you watched the True-Hue color version of the show, in which case you’ll be treated to a surprisingly comic-booky palette that you don’t usually see on television).
The Dark Origins of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir
Our first order of business should be to examine the origins of the Noir comics themselves. Originally published as part of the Marvel Noir alternate universe that reimagined several characters as hard-boiled crime-fighters, Spider-Man Noir became the most successful book in the entire run. This highly politicized story about Peter Parker coming to terms with the capitalist evils of the Great Depression seemed to have struck a nerve with audiences looking for a darker take on the wall-crawler, which is likely why we’d soon see several sequel stories as well as a video game adaptation of the character in 2010’s underrated Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Of course, it wasn’t just Spider-Man’s darker disposition that made this version of the character a hit, as 1930s New York City was depicted as being much more hostile than what we generally see in the standard Marvel Universe. From Peter’s powers coming from an Eldritch Spider God that spawns man-eating arachnids to Vulture being an ex-Freak-Show Gimp with a taste for human flesh, you can definitely understand why this Web-Head isn’t pulling his punches.
Unfortunately, this alternate universe was a little too popular for its own good, with each subsequent sequel/adaptation further diluting the political anger and classic horror influences that fueled the original comic-book run in order to appeal to a wider audience. Spider-Man Noir was nearly unrecognizable once we got to the Spider-Verse crossover that turned the character into a household name, though this would at least lead to an interesting adaptation in 2018.
The Classic Horror Influences Hidden Throughout Spider-Noir
Jack Huston as Sandman in ‘Spider-Noir’
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally translated Spider-Man Noir to the big screen, with Nicolas Cage bringing the character to life in an unexpected case of pitch-perfect casting, he was still mostly relegated to comic relief as his nazi-punching antics and over-the-top edginess were played for laughs. However, while this version of the character had little to do with the comics that spawned him, Spider-Noir’s newfound popularity eventually resulted in the announcement of a darker live-action spin-off – a spin-off that I was cautiously optimistic about.
While the showrunners ultimately decided to go in a completely different direction than the 2009 comic, the new team of writers appeared to understand Noir as a genre in ways that even the folks at Marvel Noir couldn’t quite grasp. That’s likely why 2026’s Spider-Noir boasts plenty of horror elements, just not in ways we’ve seen them before.
The series is obviously borrowing tropes and aesthetics from period-accurate monster movies, with Universal’s 1930s output being a particularly big influence. From the re-imagining of Sandman and Tombstone as tragic figures to The Spider even being operated on by a mad scientist with hilariously antiquated techniques, this bizarre collection of super-powered freaks could have easily shown up in a classic creature feature.
The scares aren’t all retro, however, as the showrunners also injected plenty of body-horror into the mix during their attempt at unifying the origin stories for all these larger-than-life characters. Hell, the Spider himself is now revealed to have gained his powers after being bitten by a half-mutated Man-Spider during World War I, and the aforementioned mad scientist keeps a disturbing collection of failed experiments in her basement, proving that not all of her patients were lucky enough to simply gain superpowers after being experimented on.
Nicolas Cage Reinvents Spider-Man Noir for Television
Ben Reilly/Spiderman (Nicolas Cage) in SPIDER-NOIR
Photo: Aaron Epstein/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC
I also really appreciate how Cage insists on depicting Ben Reilly as an arachnid trapped inside of a human body, with his uncanny physical performance and classic Hollywood impressions keeping your eyes glued to the screen while also providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
I still think it’s a shame that the character is no longer politically motivated, and I miss the detail about Uncle Ben having been cannibalized by Vulture after his social activism ruffled too many feathers, but at least this time our protagonist actually feels like someone who could have been written by Raymond Chandler if he were a fan of Superheroes.
In fact, the writers nailed the snappy back-and-forth that Noir authors like Dashiel Hammett used to refer to as the “riposte”, and it’s fun to see supervillains being depicted as horrific movie monsters instead of specialized henchmen – with The Spider feeling like just as much of a Freak Show attraction as the rest of them. Purists might be put off by the lack of reverence for the source material, but I think that’s a small price to pay when even the show’s most clichéd moments intentionally harken back to the golden age of Hollywood.
That’s why I’d argue that Amazon’s Spider-Noir isn’t really an adaptation, but rather an equally valid take on the same premise that inspired Marvel back in 2009. And in a world filled with recycled storylines that only serve to advertise future releases, I’d rather have two completely different visions of the same character than a straight-up retelling of the same handful of ideas.
At the end of the day, there’s enough space inside this comic fan’s heart for both man-eating Vultures and a Cronenberg-inspired Man-Spider. And if you’re also a fan of nostalgic creature features with comic book flair, I’d highly recommend this street-level superhero story with a spooky twist.
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