The Sentinel (1977)

The greatest movie ever!

Just perfect...

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This movie isn't for everyone. I'm honestly not sure why I like it as much as I do. Any movie I find myself watching over again is a good one, for me. I watch this at least once a year. There's just something about it that delivers for me. My biggest complaint is that the movie takes so long to get going and that the weird events leading up to the climax are more bizarre than scary and too many scenes have little to do with moving the story along. It's not likely to hold the attention of many viewers in this age of short attention spans. Maybe in saying so, I'm showing my own lack of attention span.The movie's central character is Alison Parker, played quite well by Cristina Raines. According to the trivia section here, Kate Jackson was offered the part but turned it down. Cristina Raines is a perfect stand in for Kate, but I would have loved to have seen what Kate would have done with this. Here's my attempt to sum up the overall plot with the interesting parts of the movie (major spoilers ahead): Alison is a successful model who is in a serious relationship with a successful lawyer. She ends up renting a dream apartment in New York for an incredibly reasonable price because she's not quite ready for marriage and wants her own place. She notices a spooky priest staring out of the window of the apartment above her but the real estate agent says he's a blind recluse and isn't anyone to be worried about. Alison wonders what he's staring at if he's blind. After she moves in, a strange assortment of other tenants led by Burgess Meredith's character hold a birthday party for a cat and invite Alison to join them. She finds them all odd, but has a great time anyway. When she mentions this to the real estate agent later, she is told that no one but she and the priest are living in the building, and that no one else has for years. It's discovered that the names of all those attending the party are murderers who were put to death. Alison hears strange noises from the priest's room above her during the night and her health deteriorates as she suffers from intense headaches and trouble sleeping. Her boyfriend investigates and finds out that the priest in question has a long line of predecessors who became priests or nuns immediately after each of their predecessor's deaths. And Alison is next in line. All of them, including Alison, had attempted suicide and apparently their penance is a lifelong vigilance watching over the gates of hell, where the building stands. (I think.)That sounds pretty intriguing, right? Well, I think my main gripe about the movie is that too many scenes have little to do with the central plot. The ones that do are sometimes just bizarre in a blatant attempt to shock the audience (a newly introduced Beverly D'Angelo masturbating in a leotard in front of a very uncomfortable Alison is a prime example). The ending felt like kind of a mess as well. I think maybe I like the idea of this more than the execution of it and find myself forgiving it for what I see as flaws.Possibly the craziest thing of all about this movie is that besides the number of celebrities in the main cast, there is a number of now well known actors who were in this thing before they got famous. Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum (whose voice was apprently dubbed, which I find hilarious), Jerry Orbach, and Tom Beringer. They have such tiny parts that they aren't a reason to watch this, but it was fun to see them scattered throughout the movie.I've heard other reviewers call this Rosemary's Baby meets The Exorcist, and I can see why they say that, but while it describes the general feel of the movie, it gives the movie overall way too much credit as far as effective execution.If you like slow burning 70s horror movies in general, I think you'll definitely want to check this out.

A doubtful story of small credibility, if any at all, is all the same expertly made and told and well worth seeing. Some of the effects go over the edge, but it is certainly better than most films in the genre with few parallels. The only even better one I can think of is "Spellbinder" from 1988 (see my review). Here the occult mystery show is saved by some excellent acting, especially Eli Wallach as the incredulous policeman, the only person in the film with some sober distance and even humour, while Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, Arthur Kennedy and even José Ferrer add to the stew. Cristina Raines as Alison stand in the center, though, while Chris Sarandon appears strangely callous for a boyfriend of hers, and his character is the least convincing one and not very well constructed. He loves her and yet betrays her, he has some hidden agenda and still acts as her heroic protector - it doesn't quite add up. In smaller parts you see Christopher Walken as very young and even Tom Berenger for a short moment. John Milton and Dante play an important part in quotations, but the main attraction of the film is the mystery plot and legend - it's definitely an occult classic on the same level as "Rosemary's Baby".

"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 seemed to be an entire mini-genre within horror during the late 60s and into the 70s that was obsessed with Satanism and the occult. While many point to the obvious influence of THE EXORCIST, it probably starts with ROSEMARY'S BABY and includes many films such as THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, THE BROTHERHOOD OF Satan, DEVIL'S RAIN and THE OMEN, as well as this Universal movie from 77. It stands out to me because you do not see the same sort of movies much anymore. Sure, we get possessions and demonic spirits, but it's not quite the same religious horror that was so popular during this time.This movie is about a model who's not yet ready for marriage to her lawyer beau, so she moves into a low rent apartment in Brooklyn. She quickly discovers that her neighbors are more than a little bizarre and, in fact, may not exist at all. All of it leads up to a truly disturbing conclusion revealing the true nature of the apartment building and our model heroine's real role in the goings- on.Typical of its' time, the movie starts out fairly slowly and builds the tension from there. At first, we get minor glimpses that things may be a little more than strange in this building, but can equate it to eccentric people living in a low rent building. Things continue to unravel for our heroine, though, and as they do events get more bizarre, ramping up the eerie imagery throughout the movie. It's got that great sort of quality where you're never quite sure if anything you are seeing is really happening, or in the damaged mind of our heroine.There are a few scenes which really seal this as a good movie for me. The first time that she encounters her father in the building is a really unsettling moment that pulls that creeping sense of dread over the viewer. Of course, it's the finale that really seals the deal. I don't want to spoil too much, but I don't think I'm saying anything that's not mentioned all over the internet. The gates of hell spill open and the legions of the damned pour out. They're not your typical red eyes and horns sort of demons either. These beings are real deformed people, which is fairly disturbing and has been decried as being exploitative, but I find it to be effective in bringing us something really monstrous.I, also, don't think that this is the undiscovered classic that some would claim, either. It has its' issues. The main actress is not always that great and really botches a few emotional moments with bad line delivery. It takes awhile to get going, as well, though that is more a product of its' era than a bad rap on the movie.It's fun to see the cast, too, which contains a number of actors who would go on to much bigger success in Hollywood and have minor roles here including Jeff Goldblum with most of his lines dubbed over and Chris Walken who has all of one line of dialog. We even get the dad from DIRTY DANCING as an impatient ad director.