Director Peter Weir (THE TRUMAN SHOW, MASTER AND COMMANDER) will make his next film an adaptation of Jennifer Egan’s novel THE KEEP. I know many movie fans may have been thinking I meant this version of THE KEEP, but this is an entirely different Keep.
I actually stumbled upon Egan’s novel when ordering the F. Paul Wilson novel off of Amazon. Since they share the same title, I thought this would be worth a shot. The Egan novel is about two cousins, irreversibly damaged by a childhood prank, reunite twenty years later to renovate a medieval castle in Eastern Europe. In an environment of extreme paranoia, cut off from the outside world, the men reenact the signal event of their youth, with even more catastrophic results. And as the full horror of their predicament unfolds, a prisoner, in jail for an unnamed crime, recounts an unforgettable story that seamlessly brings the crimes of the past and present into piercing relation.
Featuring a more ethereal sense of horror rather than gore, this is a good piece of storytelling that will be Weir’s first “horror” movie since his classic PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. The novel uses a novel within a novel plot device that amps up the feeling of unease as the characters try to figure out how to escape the castle.
Weir’s last film, THE WAY BACK, did not receive much buzz despite being a nice little movie. Here’s hoping THE KEEP brings Weir back to the top of his game.
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