User Reviews

What a nutty movie. Every so often I have the good fortune to find one like it. It sort of plays like an American version of an Italian horror film. By that I mean it's chock full of gratuitous lesbianism, traumatic childhood incidents, surreal sequences (such as a birthday party for a cat, an exhibitionist masturbation scene, and pretty much anytime Burgess Meredith is on screen), moody visuals, stylish direction (though not up to the dizzying heights of a Bava or Argento), and a somewhat overbearing soundtrack (rather reminiscent of Pino Donaggio in this case).

The whole film has this bizarre, off-kilter atmosphere. Besides the things mentioned in the previous paragraph, there's the way the film is cut. Scenes come and go quite abruptly at times, so you're always left a little on edge and slightly confused. There are some really awkward editing gaffes that add to this milieu, such as when Chris Sarandon's character is reading an inscription only for his voice to continue as we cut to a shot where his mouth is closed. Likewise there are some weird moments of obvious ADR (at least when you're watching it with headphones) that stick out like a sore thumb. Combined with the atrocious acting (especially from lead Cristina Raines) and you've got a film that doesn't seem quite real. I would normally criticize these things more, but they strangely lend themselves to the film's dreamlike atmosphere. I think only a couple of actors really ran with that strangeness - Eli Wallach and Burgess Meredith.

Perhaps some of the confusion results from cramming a novel into a 90 minute movie. Certain plot points, such as Eli Wallach's detective character trying to prove the guilt of Michael (the aforementioned Chris Sarandon) are eventually dropped (though this particular one is at least touched upon in the finale). And you can't help but wonder what the significance of "Black and white cat, black and white cake" is! I've mentioned plenty of the film's flaws, but there are a number of legitimately good sequences. One was popularly shown on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments (I won't spoil it here) and deservedly so. For those who have seen the show I must say that scene has a gory punchline that Bravo didn't hint at! The movie really clicked for me during the scene with Michael and the lock picker. And you can't forget the infamous climax (with some especially controversial casting - I always appreciate a little political incorrectness in my movies).

If at any time I sound like I'm criticizing this film, it is only lightly. I highly enjoyed! Though very flawed it is certainly not "so bad it's good". Mostly it's pretty good in its own right. Of course I have a weakness for oddball horror cinema, so this might not appeal to everyone. For fans of Italian horror films this is essential! How often do you see an American horror film that locks into the same milieu without even trying? P.S. Did I mention the cast? It seems like everybody is in this movie! Eli Wallach and Burgess Meredith chewing the scenery, Jeff Goldblum before he fused with a fly, Christopher Walken before he became the obsession of college students everywhere, Arthur Kennedy of The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, John Carradine (okay, that's not so surprising...the guy made it his business to be in pretty much everything), Martin Balsam, and even Jose Ferrer! Usually horror films don't come with such classy casts.

Man, I really love the new DVD that Universal put out. I've never seen THE SENTINEL look this good since I had to put up with crappy, grainy VHS tapes for years. Unfortunately there are no extras beyond a trailer that looks pretty worse for wear. And AVOID the Goodtimes DVD at all costs. It sucks.

Anyway, troubled fashion model Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) moves into haunted NYC brownstone, only it's more than just haunted. It's also a portal to hell and the Vatican keeps an old blind priest (John Carradine) to keep watch over it and make sure the devils and arch-angels don't escape.

This has an all star cast full of old-timey actors like Ava Gardner, Arthur Kennedy, Jose Ferrer etc... as well as cameos of upcoming 80s stars including Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum (who's voice was mysteriously overdubbed) and Tom Berenger. And you won't even recognize Jerry Orbach from LAW & ORDER. I had to do a double-take when I didn't quite place where I'd seen him before.

Nice gore scenes of Alison slicing the eye and nose off her dead father's rotting corpse that's been possessed by the devil. And there's a neat ending where disfigured, deformed people try to haunt Alison into committing suicide so she won't be the next one to guard the portal. It seems Alison's troubled past makes her a prime candidate by the Vatican to become the next sentinel.

An excellent, creepy 70s classic from director Michael Winner that shouldn't be missed. I also recommended it for those who want something a little more imaginative beyond the usual stupid teenager slashers and horror comedy.

7 out of 10

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Bizarre horror movie filled with famous faces but stolen by Cristina Raines (later of TV's "Flamingo Road") as a pretty but somewhat unstable model with a gummy smile who is slated to pay for her attempted suicides by guarding the Gateway to Hell! The scenes with Raines modeling are very well captured, the mood music is perfect, Deborah Raffin is charming as Cristina's pal, but when Raines moves into a creepy Brooklyn Heights brownstone (inhabited by a blind priest on the top floor), things really start cooking. The neighbors, including a fantastically wicked Burgess Meredith and kinky couple Sylvia Miles & Beverly D'Angelo, are a diabolical lot, and Eli Wallach is great fun as a wily police detective. The movie is nearly a cross-pollination of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist"--but what a combination! Based on the best-seller by Jeffrey Konvitz, "The Sentinel" is entertainingly spooky, full of shocks brought off well by director Michael Winner, who mounts a thoughtfully downbeat ending with skill. ***1/2 from ****

And that's what makes this supernatural horror movie so interesting is that it gets the imagination rolling as to what could happen beyond this had there been a sequel. Unlike "The Exorcist" and "The Omen", there were no sequels, although there has been a remake. This is also one of the biggest cast of well-known faces (of the past and the future!), and everybody plays an important part no matter how big or small their role is.

The troubled heroine here is New York fashion model Christina Raines who is gifted with the opportunity to move into an apartment in the luxurious Brooklyn Heights area that is only $400 a month. Too good to be true it seems, and it is, especially when after meeting all of the other tenants (with the exception of a James blind priest), real estate agent Ava Gardner tells her that a good majority of the apartment building has been vacant for 3 years. This leads her to a mystery to find out why she saw people that don't even exist, and this creates a mystery that is aided with the help of her boyfriend Chris Sarandon and best friend Deborah Raffin.

Such legendary actors as Jose Ferrar, Burgess Meredith, Arthur Kennedy, Martin Balsam and Eli Wallach turn up in supporting roles. Meredith absolutely hams it up joyously as a tenant who apparently doesn't exist who owns just a black and white cat and a yellow bird from Brazil. Then there's the eccentric Sylvia Miles, doing a Bette Davis impression, living with her obvious girlfriend played by a very young Beverly D'Angelo.

While Raines doesn't seem shocked by their relationship, she's instantly turned off by D'Angelo's sudden fondling of herself that is extra ordinarily crude in the way it's presented yet necessary to set up more of the mystery surrounding the remainder of the other characters who pop up in a party thrown for her by Meredith out of the blue. The tension builds up greatly until all is revealed and Raines faces her destiny.

It will be a delight for fans of modern Cinema to recognize several future stars including Jeff Goldblum, Tom Berenger and Christopher Walken. Also, fans of the New York based soaps will be delighted to see some of the regular faces of daytime popping up in roles as well. This could have been hokie, and certainly some parts indeed will make you laugh, but overall, this is delightfully spooky and a great follow-up to "Rosemary's Baby", "The Exorcist" and "The Omen", and certainly a lot better than any of the sequels to all of those films.

**SOME MINOR SPOILERS BELOW** I don't think the Sentinel is a very good movie, which is too bad because he had a great cast and is a film in a genre I'm interested in (religious thriller). However, there are just too many characters for its own good and the movie shifts its focus too many times. For example the movie starts out (and should stay firmly focused, IMHO) following Miss Parker. It has her buying the apartment with weird tenants and even a bizarre flashback of her father (which really goes nowhere and seems to be there for purely shock value). At about 1/3 of the way in "scary" stuff starts happening, but that just consists of someone moving around in the apartment above her. So a private investigator is hired by her boyfriend to look into things. He ends up dead and the police come in to investigate. The officers who are played by Eli Wallach and Christopher Walken suspect foulplay. However, though the story follows them for awhile they simply fade out and are not seen from again (which begs the question, why even put these 2 characters in the movie?) The movie then follows the boyfriend as he investigates the history of the priest character and finally some of the mystery gets unravelled. Ultimately everything winds up at the building, but it is never adequately explained "why" Miss Parker is chosen instead of just some other random person, from the best I could tell it doesn't matter. The climax itself is more grotesque then scary and there really aren't that many scary moments at all in the entire film. The Sentinel could have been better if it did away with the subplots with the cop and maybe toned down the role of the boyfriend and just focused on the lead. It is afterall only an hour and a half, and when you think about it there really wasn't that many scenes of scary stuff at the building, some weird stuff, yes, but not scary. If you are interested in religious thrillers see Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, or the Exorcist they are all better movies and contain a much more interesting story.

Zoopansick

*SPOILER ALERT*

This film certainly had its share of scary moments, and a lot more that were plain creepy. But too much of it was just over the top, and the preposterous ending sabotaged the entire film. Here is Christina Raines, our heroine, emoting frantically as All-The-Demons-Of-Hell come traipsing through the apartment.

Burgess Meredith hands her a dagger and suggests that she kill herself, telling her that if she does she will spend eternity in hell and open The Gates Of Hell and release all its demons into the world.

I can just imagine what is going through Raines' character's head at that moment: "Hmmm - let's see, what are my options here? I can kill myself like Burgess Meredith suggests, in which case I will spend all eternity in Hell with my father whom I hate and those weird lesbians who masturbate over the crumpets at tea, while at the same time unleashing all the Hordes of Hell on the world. Or not. Give me a minute, now, this is a tough one. What to do?

What to do?..."

Gimme a break.

Ahh, yes, the all-star blockbuster. Take a so-so concept, stuff it into a script and load it down with every single freakin' special effect that the Wizards of Hollyweird can conjure up, then round up the usual suspects: hot up-and-comers, has-beens, wanna-be's and never-wuzzes, and stick 'em all in ensemble roles of various sizes in front of the unforgiving eye of the cameras. And hope to gawd that some of them aren't too old to remember their lines.

Leave it to the bishops of Box Office to apply the concept to horror films at last, as was the case with the post-EXORCIST thriller THE SENTINEL. Novelist Jeffrey Konvitz decided to try and one-up Ira Levin's ROSEMARY'S BABY scenario of creepy (and ultimately satanic) neighbors in a New York brownstone. The result was a controversial best-seller that some claimed bordered on the plagiaristic, and an equally controversial, top-heavy/star-laden vehicle co-written and directed by DEATH WISH's Michael Winner, but for many unsettlingly different reasons.

Cristina Raines (NASHVILLE) plays successful model Alison Parker, who is pretty much over- stressed and over-worked, (I won't add "overpaid." I mean she IS a model, so that would be redundant), not just by her 24/7 schedule, by also by her insistent , 'wanna-get-married- right-NOW' boyfriend Michael (Chris Sarandon of DOG DAY AFTERNOON and the classic SOB.I.G. movie LIPSTICK). One of the ways she decides to try to get away from it all is to move into her own place; a big, beautiful brownstone in Manhattan which she's able to get dirt-cheap, (that should've been the BIG red flag - cheap real estate in New York!), from the mysteriously accommodating broker Miss Logan (Golden Age screen vet Ava Gardner, fresh from the storm drain in EARTHQUAKE.)

Things seem fine at first, but ah, yes...then comes the noises and the loud pounding from the apartment upstairs at night. And what about the REALLY strange neighbors like Gerde (Sylvia Miles) and Sandra (a VERY early Beverly D'Angelo), the nice "single friends" (read: lesbians) living together, and kindly old Mr. Charles Chazen (a nicely creepy Burgess Meredith), who seems maybe a little too concerned with Alison's welfare? And that's not to mention other assorted squirrelly cohabitants (You'll never hear the phrase "Black and white cat, black and white cake" again without wanting to laugh milk through your nose and possibly vomit simultaneously.) Especially the old blind priest living in the penthouse...

Things really start to go downhill when an apparition-laden nightmare of Alison's morphs into a grisly murder, (in one of the movie's most underwear-staining scares), and both Alison and Michael, with some assistance from Alison's BFF, Jennifer (Deborah Raffin), begin to piece together the puzzle that reveals the brownstone's dark origins, as well as the murderous agenda of its other-worldly inhabitants, not to mention Alison's connection to them, which as it turns out is anything but coincidental.

Although there's nothing controversial about the overstuffed cast, which seems to feature every actor of diverse genres looking for work at the time, (Arthur Kennedy, Jose Ferrer, Martin Balsam, Eli Wallach, John Carradine, and even early appearances by Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum and Nana Visitor!) Winner and company went back to bombastic basics and pulled a "Tod Browning"...by enlisting real-life physically-challenged actors to appear in THE SENTINEL'S climactic everything-and-everybody-goes-to-Hell sequence, which I guess any ballsy director would do, finding himself unable to access Linda Blair and a case of green-pea soup. It does definitely leave you with arctic fingers playing your spinal cord like a zither, knowing this juicy little tidbit of info as you watch. And it does feature a technique to which filmmakers have only begun to return very recently: live on-set makeup and special effects that don't involve CGI, (which was pretty much non-existent back then.)

THE SENTINEL has that kitschy, late-Seventies cheese factor, but does manage to distinguish itself from time to time with some gasp-inducing moments like the one mentioned above, not to mention that queasy feeling of dread that horror writers find it easy to play upon, of isolation and things that go bump-and-shriek in the night. After all, what living-single-in- the-big-city person hasn't lain in bed in the dark, and listened intently to the sounds of what they HOPE is "the building settling?"

Konvitz followed up THE SENTINEL with an inevitable sequel, THE GUARDIAN (not to be confused with the William Friedkin supernatural thriller namesake), that was never adapted for the screen. =sigh of relief=

The Sentinel is a movie that was recommended to me years ago, by my father, and i've seen it many times since. It always manages to entertain me, while being effectively creepy as well. The flashback scenes are what really made it for me. Cristina Raines's father running around all creepily, with the two creepy woman, always manages to send chills down my spine. it's your typical good vs evil thing, but at least it manages to be entertaining. The ending I consider to be one of the finest in Horror history. It has plenty of shocks and suspense, seeing Burgess Meredith do his thing as Chazen, had me on the edge of my seat. The Sentinel has the perfect build up of tension. We are never fully comfortable whenever Allison is on screen. We know something terrible is always awaiting her, and that made things all the more tense. This movie is often neglected among horror fans, but I personally think it's one of the better one's out there, and it certainly has enough for all Horror fans, to be satisfied.

Performances. Cristina Raines has her wooden moments, but came though in a big way for the most part. She's beautiful to look at, and her chemistry with Saranadon felt natural. Chris Sarandon is great as the boyfriend, Michael. He had an instant screen presence, and I couldn't help but love him. Martin Balsam,José Ferrer,John Carradine,Ava Gardner,Arthur Kennedy,Sylvia Miles,Deborah Raffin,Jerry Orbach,Richard Dreyfuss,Jeff Goldblum and Tom Berenger all have memorable roles, or small cameos. Burgess Meredith is terrific as Chazen. He looks like a normal old man, but what we find out, is absolutely terrifying. Eli Wallach&Christopher Wlaken do well, as the bumbling detectives. Beverly D'Angelo has one chilling scene, that I won't spoil.

Bottom line. The Sentinel is an effective Horror film that Horror fans, sadly tend to neglect. It will give you the thrills and scares you need to be satisfied. Well worth the look.

7/10