The Sentinel

Rating:
Summary: Scary flick!
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.

Rating:
Summary: Scary flick!
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.

Rating:
Summary: How much is HER rent?
Review: A decent horror film about a fashion model who rents a room in an old Brooklyn building that's actually a gateway to hell. There's an assortment of grotesque characters and effects, and the final scene is very gruesome indeed. There are worse ways to spend 92 minutes.

Rating:
Summary: About average demonic horror thriller.
Review: Death Wish series director Michael Winner applied his standard blunt edged approach to sex and violence with this sub-standard adaptation of Jeffrey Konvitz's well crafted novel. While the movie has a rich, glossy look and a cast to die for (check out the old and future star power, just about every cast member is a now recognizable face) and has a final reel that will have your skin crawling off your body, it muddles far too many of the plot details of Konvitz's textured story and unfolds unevenly. It gets four stars for the cast and creep factor alone (and Winner's Tod Browningesque chutzpah in using extras with actual deformities as the tortured souls of hell), but this is nothing more than a cult movie, not a classic. Trivia bonus: make-up effects artist Dick Smith (The Exorcist, The Godfather, and an Oscar winner for Amadeous) was so unsettled by the violent make-ups he created for this movie that he refused to do anymore for some time afterward. Strictly for fans of the hard edged and/or exploitive.

Rating:
Summary: Very haunting and disturbing (in a good way)
Review: For all the thrill seekers, such as myself, this is a keeper! This film will have you biting all your nails, your boyfriends nails and whomever else is near. This one is right up there with the other cult classics. (Exorcists,ED<ED2, etc.)

Rating:
Summary: About THIS umvd edition DVD....
Review: For those wondering, the umvd edition of The Sentinel is in anamorphic widescreen, and is enhanced for 16x9 television sets, so there are no black bars. The print is better than the previous release by GoodTimes, but despite other reviewers saying there is another cut of this film, this one is the same one you get on the good times disc, and there are no extras.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent 70's Horror!
Review: I am going to play out some favoritism here. This is one of the best horror films to come out of the 70's, and onto DVD. Not only is it a great story; full of twisted characters, sick shock scenes, and deviant sexual content (all with a root of pure evil), it has an unbelievably star-studded cast! Ask yourself, "Where else, but in the "The Sentinel" can a great actor, like Christopher Walken, say so little, and chew so much gum, and still make it look pretty damn good?" (Was that Wrigley's, or Juicy-Fruit?) Even more...check out Burgess Meredith as Satan himself! You think Burgess never got more evil than The Penguin? Guess again kiddo! OK. Don't expect DOLBY sound (The sound is good, considering the age of the film). Don't look for digitally enhanced effects, or quality (No one would want to sink that kind of cash into this 'un). And don't expect a lot of extras (There really aren't any). What you do get is the uncut (HALLELUJAH!!!) version of a very decent print of the film (Sorry. No widescreen folks). Get it because, soon, you may never see a chance to get it again. This film is very obscure, and will, in time, be lost forever. Great for dark nights, and popcorn! Turn off the lights, and have a chill.

Rating:
Summary: 8 Fingers Up - Way Up!
Review: I believe if your a fan of such moviesas Halloween,The Omen, or The Exorcist,The Sentinel is right up your alley.Good Cast, Great Suspense and it allbuilds to an exciting climax.

Rating:
Summary: Quite creepy
Review: I first saw this movie when it came out on Showtime in the 1970s, when I was about 6 or 7. To this day, I have crystal-clear memories of that cat in the hallway. Back then I swore never to watch this movie ever again, but something about it intrigued me enough to rent it recently, and I have to say that I'm sorry that I never took the time to watch it before now.

The first few minutes are kinda slow-going, but about 30 minutes or so the fun starts. I'm not going to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it yet, but suffice it to say that even though you you begin to figure out the ending before it arrives, the last two or three minutes are truly disquieting. Sure it's a bit campy and dated (Chris Sarandon looks like an extra from Saturday Night Fever,) but it is certainly a welcome change from the <quite> formulaic "Friday the 13th" type movies that so glut this genre. You'll enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: Ghostbusters Prequel?
Review: I first saw this movie, because of Corey Feldman's line in the film, "The Burbs", and found it to be a gem of horror movies. What a lot of people dont know is that in a wierd way this is the prequel to Ghostbusters. "The Sentinel" was based on a novel with the same name. The original novelist wrote a sequel to the book called "The Guardian", (not to be confused with the Friedkin film.) Anyway Harold Ramis and Ivan Rietman got a hold of the book and reworked it into Ghostbusters. If you watch the two movies together, you can see similar themes of a New York appartment as the gateway to hell and a female guardian keeping our world and the underworld separate.