10 Director's Cuts We'd Rather See Than Snyder's Justice League

5. The Keep

Sam Neill Event Horizon 2
Paramount

It's not always a bad thing for the director adapting the novel upon which their film is based have no love for the source material. Such was the case with Michael Mann's The Keep.

The director didn't particularly care for F. Paul Wilson's novel about a Nazi platoon battling an ancient evil in an old Romanian citadel and instead chose to turn it into an expressionistic fairy tale. But production problems, a general disagreement on what the villain should look like and the death of a visual effects supervisor were only the start of The Keep's undoing.

It was poor test audiences that ultimately killed Mann's 210-minute cut, a whole 90 minutes longer than Paramount had allowed him. They cut it down to an incomprehensible 96-minutes, filled with plot holes and confusing narratives. Its cult status is primarily held by fans of its Tangerine Dream soundtrack. But irony knows no bounds: it's the soundtrack clearance issues that prevent the film from getting a proper blu ray outside of anywhere but Australia.

Contributor
Contributor

Kenny Hedges is carbon-based. So I suppose a simple top 5 in no order will do: Halloween, Crimes and Misdemeanors, L.A. Confidential, Billy Liar, Blow Out He has his own website - thefilmreal.com - and is always looking for new writers with differing views to broaden the discussion.