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The Sentinel (1977) Review
"The Sentinel" is a grand 1970's horror film staffed with a cast rivaling the pictures made by Robert Altman or Irwin Allen. I can't remember the last time I saw a film with so many recognizable faces--Christopher Walken, Chris Sarandon, Beverly D'Angelo, Burgess Meredith, John Carradine, Jerry Orbach, Jeff Goldblum, Ava Gardner, Martin Balsam, Jose Ferrar, Eli Wallach, Arthur Kennedy, and Tom Berenger all pop up in roles both major and minor throughout the film. "The Sentinel" obviously takes films like "The Omen," "Rosemary's Baby," and "The Exorcist" as its role models, and it holds up surprisingly well in comparison. When I stumbled over this film a few months ago, I was quite astounded I had never heard of it before considering I am such a fan of 1970's horror films dealing with satanic influences. Michael Winner, the director who presented us with such classic cinema as "Scorpio," "Death Wish," and "The Mechanic," gives us his all in this chilling story about a gateway to Hell and the poor souls entrusted to protect the rest of us from the evil spirits dwelling there. The movie is an adaptation of a book written by Jeffrey Konvitz.A model named Alison Parker and her successful lawyer boyfriend Michael Lerman (Christina Raines and Chris Sarandon respectively) begin their descent into madness when Parker rents a room in a creepy old apartment building from mysterious real estate agent Miss Logan (Ava Gardner). The model soon discovers her new dwellings possess a decidedly sinister atmosphere--a blind priest sits and stares out of the window of the top floor apartment, an elderly creep spouting cryptic comments (Burgess Meredith) keeps dropping by, and a couple of females in an extremely close relationship live in a neighboring apartment. Within a few days of moving in, Parker begins to hear strange noises, starts having vivid memories of a suicide attempt she made as a child, sleepwalks, and discovers a few hideous secrets about the other tenants in the building. By the time Alison starts having fainting fits during fashion shoots, her boyfriend Michael steps in and starts investigating the strange apartment building. Lerman's nosing around brings in a couple of detectives (Wallach and Walken) who remember well how Michael's first wife died under mysterious circumstances. When bodies start turning up, "The Sentinel" becomes a race to discover what evil lurks in the apartment building before the cops pin the weirdness on Lerman.
Winner's film evokes shudders on numerous levels. You'll gasp in surprise several times during the film, from the eventual revelations about the strange residents to what Beverly D'Angelo's character does when Alison Parker pays a visit (I had to replay that scene a couple of times just to convince myself that I did really see that. Purely from an academic aspect, of course. Honest.). I've seen several films where Burgess Meredith works hard at being weird--"Burnt Offerings" is an excellent example--but I don't remember him ever attaining the level of bizarre he does here. He's downright disturbing as the elderly neighbor who drops in on Raines's character from time to time. The conclusion of the film definitely constitutes one of the more disturbing endings I have seen in a horror film, and it does so with a lot less gore than you would expect. I thought the plot of "The Sentinel" was a good one, a plot both frighteningly offbeat and effectively eerie.
I had a lot of fun watching for famous faces. Most of the actors who appeared in the film weren't that well known yet, and they look younger than you could ever imagine. Jeff Goldblum plays a pushy fashion photographer, Beverly D'Angelo turns up as a lesbian with a penchant for showmanship, and Christopher Walken plays a cop. Walken especially is humorous to watch. He only has about two lines in the entire film yet still manages to exude his now famous sense of weirdness. Chris Sarandon has since become a better known actor through such roles as the vampire in "Fright Night," and Jerry Orbach made a name for himself as a character actor in films ("Brewster's Millions") and as one of the cops in the television show "Law and Order." The only real mystery here is Christina Raines as Alison Parker. Here's an actress in the lead role in a film loaded with young and old talent alike, and she barely makes a splash. In fact, she hasn't made a movie or television show since the late 1980s. What happened? Personally, I didn't care for her character in the movie or how she played the part. Even worse, considering she's supposed to be playing a big buck fashion model, she isn't very attractive. You will have a better time watching the interesting mix of actors and actresses instead of focusing on Raines's histrionic performance.
"The Sentinel" doesn't provide much in the way of extras outside of a trailer and some production notes. Even the picture transfer isn't all that good, unfortunately. You would figure a movie loaded with so many once was and would be stars would get a better treatment. Oh well, give the movie a shot if you love horror. Creepy, grotesque, and shocking--"The Sentinel" managed to surprise me, a jaded horror aficionado, more than a few times. Let's hope they rerelease the movie on a DVD with a better picture transfer, more extras, and perhaps a commentary from the likes of Sarandon.
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