The Sentinel (1977)

The ideas of The Sentinel : The ability to heal only has value if the ability is administered by evil: Desire can be seen: The history of reality should be ignored by the endgame of reality: Only violence can create images: Violence can learn to remove itself from reality

When we meet Alison Parker (Cristina Raines, daughter of The Invisible Man), she's a busy New York model. She's gorgeous. And she's always crazy, suffering strange psychosomatic issues such as night terrors, insomnia and random flashbacks to all of the times she tried to kill herself. After she moves into a spiffy Brooklyn brownstone — because she wants to see if she can live on her own and not with her rich boyfriend, Michael (Chris Sarandon, more on him later) she starts hearing random noises and meeting people who don't exist.That all leads to work-related trauma, as she often passes out while modeling and ends up in the hospital. A young, pre Law and Order Jerry Orbach is having none of her shenanigans, asking if they can just move her and give her clothes to another model.Oh yeah — she also hated her dad, who just died. Her first suicide attempt came after she walked in on her ancient pa playing with an entire roomful of prostitutes. And it turns out that her boyfriend is being investigated by the police (played by Eli Wallach and a super young Christopher Walken) for killing his wife. Whew! Needless to say, she's gorgeous but doesn't have issues. She has subscriptions.Only one person — supposedly — lives in the building with Alison: Father Halliran ("Skinny Dracula_ himself, John Carradine), a priest so blind that his eyes have gone whiter than Emily from The Beyond. All he does is sit in front of his window and stare into the void. Turns out that Alison's new home is really owned by a secret society of excommunicated Catholic priests — all the cool ones are — and they guard the gateway to Hell. And that gateway? Yeah, it's right here in the building. And Father Halliran is the Sentinel, the blind guardian of the abyss.Read more at http://www.thatsnotcurrent.com/40-years-later-look-back- sentinel-1977/

"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.

Considering the cast -- Chris Sarandon, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, José Ferrer, Ava Gardner, Arthur Kennedy, Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach, and early appearances by Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, and even -- briefly -- Tom Berenger -- this should be a true classic horror film. But, not quite. But why? First, the film gets off to a very slow start. Yes, the "stage" needs to be set, but it sorta drags.Second, Cristina Raines beautiful enough to be a model? Nope...unless the only criteria is being skinny. Christina Raines an actress? Nope again. Terrible.Third, some of dialogue is...well, let's just say not very scintillating...and at times inane.Fourth, it's not supposed to be funny or predictable...but in many places it is one or the other or both. There were times I almost laughed out loud.The question is -- who's to blame. I'd say director Michael Winner. Bet you can't name one of his films off the top of your head. Strictly B material (at best) unless you love Charles Bronson.As far as the acting, Chris Sarandon hadn't quite learned to act yet. He was getting there, but this was only his third film, and it shows.Martin Balsam isn't in the film long enough to critique...nor was John Carradine, José Ferrer, Ava Gardner (at least we can say she was still quite beautiful), Eli Wallach, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum (was that actually his voice, or a voice dubbed in?), or Tom Berenger.Arthur Kennedy as a priest had a somewhat decent role here, and he was certainly a veteran.Probably the best performance is that of Burgess Meredith. There was always something special about Burgess Meredith, and he makes a somewhat minor role into a delicious attraction all its own.There is one thing I will give the film some credit for: it appears to be that some of the "freaks" at the end of the film were really sadly bizarre abnormal people. Kudos for making that real, un-kudos for exploiting people's misfortune.The odd thing is, I actually remember this film from back in the 1970s, and had hoped it would come out on Blu Ray (it's a decent transfer). I just didn't remember how bad it was. I ended up throwing the disc away after one viewing; at least I got a spare Blu Ray container for my purchase.