The Sentinel (1976)

Love This Film

This is an amazing film.Totally creepy and utterly addictive.Nothing like I have ever watched.The setting was perfect in the building.Make me think twice about where I move to! LOL One of my favorite picks. August 31, 2008

The Sentinel

I really enjoyed this old -70's version -movie. I really appreciated the old fashioned horror effects- which were state of the art back in the 70's. Most of my joy was in being able to find it throught your company. I had recently spotted an old bldg situated near the water similar to the house that this movie centers around. Began thinking of the "horror/mystical" movie I saw many years ago....began searching using key phrases, etc and eventually fell upon the old title and found it through AMAZON.COM.
Thanks April 28, 2008

Creepy

This movie gave me goosebumps the first time I saw it. It is so strange, so creepy, so different. Takes place in N.Y, a model Alison Parker decides she needs some time away from her boyfriend, Michael(Chris Sharandon) Alison, finds a cheap rent in this old brick apartment building. There are strange people who occupy the building, like a priest who sits staring out the window day and night. There are all other sorts of creepy people who live in the building, that Alison meets. What's scary is that, when she calls the realitor to complain about the noise in the apartment above hers...the realitor tells her no one but the priest lives in her building!!! Alison goes on a strange downward spiral after that, and the creepiest things start to happen to her. This movie made it on Bravo's Scariest Movies Top 100! It is a classic horror story! March 11, 2008

Not very good but interesting

This movie was disappointing. It had all the right elements to be something like Rosemary's Baby in creepiness, perversity, and oddness...but it just didn't deliver. For instance, the creepy father orgy/ suicide flashback should have been disturbing but just seemed....funny. The cat birthday party and meeting with the other tenants should have felt trippy and garish and bizarre but it just felt...like a cat birthday party.

There really is no tone nor sense of foreboding in it. The acting isn't great--Cristina Raines is interesting looking but not a good actress and the boyfriend was just...blech. I am not sure what the significance of....many things in this film are. One would think the fact that she is a model--someone who depends on her physical being for money would have been an interesting counterpoint to the priests and church people--ones who have dedicated their lives to the spiritual but it just seemed like it didn't occur to the filmmakers to do anything interesting with that. I would have liked the fashion world to have seemed decadent and slightly sick and off kilter, so that the girl seemed pressured from all sides into a life of sin and depravity....

I've ordered the book because it seems like there is some good material there, but it was just not executed very well on film. But it is certainly still worth a look...just for the seventies clothing and for the thought about what it could have been...
This is one seventies horror story that could benefit from a remake--it wasn't well-executed to begin with so why not try it again? November 17, 2007

"Forget all hope, all ye who enter here..."

The Sentinel is one of the penultimate 1970's horror films. It really ranks up there with The Exorcist, the Other and the Omen. But as with those films and other horror films of the 1970's, stylistically they were made differently: character development, mood and plot line build toward the climactic final scenes. This is indicative of most, if not all horror films until the 1980's (think: Psycho, where finally seeing "Mother" is the payoff in the last reel). I believe that understanding the differences and styles of telling stories in films is important to appreciating and enjoying them. For many younger viewers accustomed to modern horror films where the frights are played out from the opening through the closing credits, this type of film may seem boring or overly drawn out. But it requires understanding.

Allison Cristina Raines), a successful New York model, seeks some independence from her somewhat intense lawyer boyfriend (Chris Sarandon) and searches for an apartment. She enlists a realtor (Ava Gardner) to help her find just the right one. They search and search, but it is a beautiful brownstone with high ceilings and an incredible view of the river that wins Allison over. Little does Allison realize what she done when she rents the furnished apartment. Full blown horror begins to reveal itself as the film goes from interesting, to unsettling, to creepy and then to downright frightening.

The Sentinel's horror builds rather than slap the viewer in the face with it. For me, it is much more satisfying than most of the modern horror films which rely on shock and gore to deliver their effects.

For example, as Allison looks at the apartment, the realtor (Ava Gardner, stunningly unsettling in her performance) tells her the rent. Allison, stunned by the reasonable price, repeats the rent for verification, only to hear the realtor reduce the price. For me, it always portended the doom that would befall Allison: she's being selected/set up to rent this apartment.

It's small things such as this that create the building sense that Allison has no control over her own fate. Maybe I appreciate this because I grew up on heavy doses of the classic black and white films from Hollywood's golden era...but my appreciation for that is thrown out the window when Allison meets two of her neighbors: two lesbians (one of whom is Beverly D'Angelo in a very early film). Although the scene might play out as erotic to some, for anyone raised with a strong sense of propriety, it will be a very uncomfortable scene that further instills the sense that Allison has gotten more than she bargained for when she rented her apartment.

Some of Hollywood's best have cameo and supporting roles in this who's who film. Burgess Merideth is exceedingly good. His nuanced performance is worth the price of this DVD.

I bought this film from Amazon several years ago and I watch it at least once a year.

Many other reviewers here have provided rather extensive synopsises of the film so I won't add my own to that list, but I wanted to touch on the necessity for understanding this film and appreciating it for its importance in 1970's horror cinema.

Although this DVD edition is lacking any real extras, the film is still excellent. A full DVD treatment is deserved with behind the scenes data and a director's commentary. I eagerly look forward to such a treatment. September 24, 2007

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