The Sentinel (1977)

Excellent adaptation.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I saw this maybe three decades ago, and the only thing I remembered was a line towards the end. The film is every bit as good as I didn't remember it. Our damsel is a model in a small way, she makes TV advertisements. She also has a troubled past; she's a lapsed Catholic who in addition to turning her back on the Great JC has been known to slash her wrist. Moving to the Big Apple she is under pressure to marry her lawyer boyfriend, but possibly because of his recent widower status she has reservations. She takes an expensive apartment at a knock down rent, and has mixed feelings about her neighbours, which turn to confusion when she is told they don't exist. The obvious conclusion is that in view of her previous issues she is going gaga, but her boyfriend thinks not with good reason, and begins to dig deeper. There is a lot more and early on a bit of humour, but broadly speaking there are three possibilities: this is a film about madness, a criminal conspiracy, or something genuinely supernatural. It is not giving too much away to say that criminals and lunatics play only a minor part in the end.

"The Sentinel" is a film of two halves, the first one drawn out, boring and filled to the brim with sequences connected in no way to the actual plot and the second one somewhat more entertaining, but still silly and very, very confused. I say confused because the film's mythology and the villain's plot are very vague and badly explained, and while films like "The Exorcist" or more recently "The Blair Witch Project" use this to their terrifying advantage in "The Sentinel" it looks just very amateurish. In fact, the script feels like it is a cut up version of a first-year film school student's first draft of a Gothic horror film. At least half of this film are pointless scenes dedicated to celebrity cameos. Eli Wallach and Christopher Walken (pre-fame) are heavy-handedly shoehorned into the plot as two police detectives bothering Chris Sarandon and then disappear without a trace after about three scenes in which Wallach wisecracks. Martin Balsam shows up for 2 minutes, is given several absentminded jokes to do (which he does surprisingly badly), translates some Latin then disappears. Still, the most audacious one of all is the impressive waste of Jose Ferrer (in a role even smaller than his turn in the immeasurably more entertaining "The Swarm") as a priest who mumbles something to another priest and then disappears, a real Oscar worthy mumble it was. When the film is on plot it ranges from mind-numbingly boring scenes in which Cristina Raines complains of headaches to blatant homophobia. John Carradine is painfully wasted here as a priest who spends the entire film staring out of a window, but at least he has some plot significance. The film finally stumbles upon its climax seemingly through sheer plot convenience we finally get some genuinely creepy imagery (the priest's pink fluffy hat aside) but all it comes down to is Catholic propaganda and the sad realization you've just wasted 90 minutes of your life. The film does have its strengths but they're so few and far apart that they don't really matter. There are two excellent spooky scenes in the film (the aforementioned climax and a really creepy scene in the middle of the film) and one person who almost makes watching this film excusable. Burgess Meredith gives one of his best performances (of many) in this film and unlike everyone around him who are obviously phoning their performances in (everyone that is other than Cristina Raines who really, really tries but is a sadly bad actress), Burgess Meredith gives it his all and pulls of a performance worthy of a real classic horror film, unfortunately, it is in a confused, schlocky, badly written one.P.S. Jeff Goldblum and Jerry Orbach show up playing almost the same character and both of them could be cut out of the film without any grief. In fact, if you were to cut out all the fat from the film you would get a really bad episode of "Tales from the Crypt". Now isn't that a turn-on.P.S.2 The film has without a doubt the best director's commentary ever recorded. Listen to that, skip the film.

There's not many actors who epitomize the '70s more than Chris Sarandon, Christina Raines, and Deborah Raffin and seeing the two gals together as NYC fashion models in a slickly made horror film from the "Me Decade" was both "of its time" eye candy and a nostalgic rush. Christina, fresh out of the clinic after another suicide attempt, rents a too-good-to-be- true apartment in Brooklyn Heights with a closely "guarded" secret of apocalyptic proportions... THE SENTINEL's from an era when religious-themed Armageddon was in fashion and the film has more than a bit of ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE OMEN in its pedigree. The cast has "more stars than there are in heaven" what with Ava Gardner, Arthur Kennedy, Sylvia Miles, Jose Ferrer, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach, Jerry Orbach, Beverly D'Angelo, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Walken popping in and out. Look quickly for Tom Berenger and Richard Dreyfuss, too. It's a fun movie (based on a popular beach read) that's a bit better than it's initial reception would suggest and it made me nostalgic for movies like THE EYES OF LAURA MARS and THE LEGACY before I came to my senses.

This is a good horror movie. It was risqué for the time but compared to the cannibal ghoul gut fests we have today, it is tame. The main problems are lame direction and poor leads casting choices. Which is ironic since the movie had cast of stars as supporting actors, past present & future, such as Ava Gardner, Eli Wallach, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, etc, That made the two lame choices for leads, Chris Sarandon and Cristina Raines, seem almost sabotage. But the basic story, while derivative, is sound, and it carried the movie. Of course, one can't miss the Rosemary's Baby tie in when the opening NYC shot is an aerial view of Central Park West NYC showing the Dakota. Except here the creepy house with the "great rental deal" is in Brooklyn Heights, not Manhattan. Then add some Catholic clergy angle and church imagery to give the movie some medieval baroque old world mystery to the story. After all, the start of the movie was set in an old Italian monastery.So if you overlook some bad direction and hokey aspects, like the Alison's suicide flashback and other bad moments. it is a good overlooked flick. I think some reasons for its dismissal are the malign homosexual characters, ghosts mainly and a freak show finale of real circus sideshow freaks. But it is still interesting enough and offbeat to make for good viewing. But there is one question you will ask yourself all through the movie, why didn't she get out of that house ASAP? Why didn't any of her friends tell her to get out of that house, especially after she started mysteriously fainting? She had money, her dead dad was super rich & she was a top level fashion model. And the plot didn't all happen in a day or two, more like a month.