The Medieval stronghold occupied by the Nazis on their Balkan frontier appears to be built back to front, as if to keep someone in rather than out. How odd! The Carpathian locale is a reputable horror-movie tradition, as is the monster carrying off the girl limply in its arms. This ought to be a good deal of fun, but any potential in that direction is snuffed by the solemn pretentiousness. (Well, Ian McKellen, in the hammiest wheelchair performance since Lionel Barrymore, is fun of a sort, but at the movie's expense.) There is a good special effect -- or rather, spatial effect -- of a fathomless underground cavern; and the monster's metamorphosis, from ball of smoke to pillar of smoke to full-color model of the human muscular system, is strange to see. But the overworked visuals on the whole suggest nothing so much as an MTV video. In specific, the smoke, the wind, the drafty castle, and the glowing eyes suggest nothing so much as the video for Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." With Scott Glenn and Jurgen Prochnow; written and directed by Michael Mann. (1983) — Duncan Shepherd
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