The Sentinel

Where does one begin in reviewing The Sentinel? The movie starts out with cheesy, made-for-TV music and a sweeping view of Central Park in New York. During the first half of the film the dialog is poor, the acting bad and the editing off. One second an actor has a smile on his or her face and the next split second they are serious.

Some of the scenes are laughable-so poorly done and choppy and with abrupt endings.

The film is sort of a horror/melodrama and uneven at best. There are actors that are very good here like Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith and Sylvia Miles who make the lesser known actors look like amateurs!

The second half of the film becomes even more bizarre and yet very interesting when we learn that this young model is living over the entrance to hell which is actually ridiculous.

It's hard to get too involved in a lot of this because of the absurdity of it all. And yet the actors take everything so seriously.

But during that last 30 minutes of the film things become very bizarre indeed. Real deformed people were used in the film which stirred some controversy.

There are some very interesting moments in this film that are really very intense. Especially when Chris Sarandon explains what is happening. However,........this is really a low budget mess and very little thought was put into the script. With all of these great actors no one came forward and tried to improve this? Unbelievable.

It's too bad because a lot of time and money went into this film. A lot of talented, seasoned people are here yet the lead actors seem ill prepared and their dialog is horrible. Horror fans will love the blatant gore but most people will dismiss this as trashy.

A fashion model (Christina Raines) begins having strange visions, physical problems, and nightmares after moving into a new apartment. Her neighbors are acting even weirder. She keeps having flashbacks about a past suicide attempt and her boyfriend (Chris Sarandon) is in total disbelief.

As far as shock value is concerned this film is a total success. It features some of the strangest, most disturbing images in movie history and that ending is really something. However, it is extremely dull and uneven for most of the films running time. Still, it has a GREAT cast.

Rated R; Nudity, Graphic Violence, Sexual Situations, and Profanity.

At the end of the movie you will see a very disfigured man, seems like great makeup job, with warts all over his face, similar to the elephant man but not as severe. This was no makeup. Louie was from my neighborhood and was severely disfigured from birth. He was picked for the movie while on the train coming from work where he used to mop floors in a hospital. Everyone in my neighborhood loved Louie and his disfigurement never bothered us. He actually was married to a normal looking woman and had a child, a son. He had his 15 minutes of fame and we were all happy for him, great guy that made a deficit into an asset.

Boasting an all-star cast so impressive that it almost seems like the "Mad Mad Mad Mad World" of horror pictures, "The Sentinel" (1977) is nevertheless an effectively creepy film centering on the relatively unknown actress Cristina Raines. In this one, she plays a fashion model, Alison Parker, who moves into a Brooklyn Heights brownstone that is (and I don't think I'm giving away too much at this late date) very close to the gateway of Hell. And as a tenant in this building, she suffers far worse conditions than leaky plumbing and the occasional water bug, to put it mildly! Indeed, the scene in which Alison encounters her noisy upstairs neighbor is truly terrifying, and should certainly send the ice water coursing down the spines of most viewers. Despite many critics' complaints regarding Raines' acting ability, I thought she was just fine, more than ably holding her own in scenes with Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, Arthur Kennedy, Chris Sarandon and Eli Wallach. The picture builds to an effectively eerie conclusion, and although some plot points go unexplained, I was left feeling more than satisfied. As the book "DVD Delirium" puts it, "any movie with Beverly D'Angelo and Sylvia Miles as topless cannibal lesbians in leotards can't be all bad"! On a side note, yesterday I walked over to 10 Montague Terrace in Brooklyn Heights to take a look at the Sentinel House. Yes, it's still there, and although shorn of its heavy coat of ivy and lacking a blind priest/nun at the top-floor window, looks much the same as it did in this picture. If this house really does sit atop the entrance to Hell, I take it that Hell is...the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. But we New Yorkers have known THAT for some time!

I really liked this movie! One of my favorite undead movies of all time infact.

Don't expect a ton of special effects, but do expect some genuine chills and memorable visuals.

If you like Clive Barker-esque horror, you'll like this movie.