It's been a few years since I last watched this riff on "Dracula," and it has not held up. This is either due to the studio cutting half the finished movie or the director not being suited to the horror genre. Perhaps it's both. Sadly, the novel (the original, not the revised version) is a humdinger. An ancient entity is imprisoned in a vast structure deep inside a Romanian mountain. It is bound by what appears to be a series of silver crosses embedded in the walls that bind it. During WWII, a Nazi contingent arrives and takes over the small town at the foot of the Keep, and curiosity and greed soon get the better of the bored soldiers. The creature is released and starts picking them off to regain strength and shape before it ventures out. The opening scenes are spellbinding, as Michael Mann is a visualist extraordinaire. But once the actual plot gets going, it's all downhill from there. The monster is never scary, there is little suspense and the jagged studio editing makes the story hard to follow. Admittedly, it was shot on a shoestring budget, and Mann does the best with what he had to work with. This is no cult classic, folks. The best we can hope for is a big-budget remake, especially in this CGI era.