The Sentinel (1977 Film)

''The Sentinel'' is a 1977 American supernatural horror film directed by Michael Winner, and starring Chris Sarandon, Cristina Raines, Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, Sylvia Miles, and Eli Wallach. The plot focuses on Alison Parker, a young model who moves into a historic Brooklyn brownstone that has been sectioned into apartments, only to find that the building is owned by the Catholic diocese and is a gateway to Hell. It is based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Jeffrey Konvitz, who also co-wrote the screenplay with director Winner. It also features Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, John Carradine, Jerry Orbach, Tom Berenger, Nana Visitor, and Beverly D'Angelo in supporting roles.

The film was released by Universal Pictures in 1977.

Plot

Alison Parker, a fashion model with a history of suicide attempts due to childhood trauma, moves into a historic Brooklyn Heights brownstone. The top floor apartment is occupied by a blind priest, Father Francis Matthew Halliran, who spends his time sitting at his open window. Soon after moving in, Alison begins having strange physical problems, including fainting spells and insomnia, and hears noises. She meets her odd new neighbors, including the eccentric, elderly Charles Chazen, and lesbian couple Gerde Engstrom and Sandra, becoming disturbed when Sandra masturbates in front of her. She also attends a bizarre birthday party for Chazen's cat. When Alison complains to the rental agent, Miss Logan, she is told that the building is occupied only by Halliran and her. Alison's lawyer boyfriend Michael Lerman contacts his corrupt detective friend James Brenner to investigate.

One night, Brenner goes to Alison's building, where she encounters the animated corpse of her deceased father. She escapes by stabbing him and is hospitalized with a nervous breakdown. Police detectives Gatz and Rizzo investigate; clues lead them to suspect that Michael murdered his wife after she refused to leave him, so he could marry Alison. They find Brenner's stabbed body; clues suggest Alison might have murdered him. They also find that the people Alison claimed she saw at the cat's birthday party are all deceased murderers.

Alison, who can now read Latin words no one else can see, visits a Catholic church, and confesses her sins, including her adultery with Michael, to Monsignor Franchino. Michael breaks into the Diocesan office and reads Halliran's file, which shows he is one of a series of priests and nuns who previously attempted suicide in lay life, then became clergy or nuns on the date of their predecessor's death. Alison is listed as the latest in the series, slated to take over as "Sister Teresa" the next day. Frightened, Michael is confronted by Father Halliran, who reveals that the brownstone is the gateway to Hell. Michael attempts to strangle Father Halliran, but is killed by Franchino.

In the brownstone, Alison is confronted by Chazen and the minions of Hell, including the now-dead Michael, who indeed had hired Brenner to kill his wife. They explain that Halliran is the Sentinel, who ensures that the demons do not escape Hell. Halliran is nearing the end of his life, and Alison, with her history of suicide attempts, has been chosen as the new Sentinel to save her own soul. Chazen tries to convince Alison to join Michael in Hell instead. However, after Halliran's intense struggle with the demons, Alison takes the cross from him, accepting her duty as the Sentinel and saving her soul. Defeated, an angry Chazen disappears.

The brownstone is demolished and replaced with a modern apartment complex shortly thereafter. Miss Logan shows an apartment to a young couple. She explains that there are only two neighbors: a violin player and a reclusive nun. Alison, now blind and dressed as a nun, sits looking out the top apartment window.

Cast

Production

Development

Universal Pictures purchased the film rights to the novel '' The Sentinel'' in 1974 and originally hired its author Jeffrey Konvitz to write the screenplay. It later replaced Konvitz with Richard Alan Simmons as screenwriter and hired Don Siegel as director. Although location scouting for this version of the film was done in New Orleans in 1975, it was abandoned in favor of a screenplay co-written by Konvitz and the new director Michael Winner, who was offered the project by Universal executive Ned Tanen when the two met at a party in Los Angeles.

Casting

Winner cast Cristina Raines in the lead role of Alison Parker, having directed her previously in '' The Stone Killer'' (1973), though her scenes were ultimately cut from the finished version of that film. In the role of Michael Lerman, Alison's attorney boyfriend, Winner hired Martin Sheen, but Universal disagreed with this casting decision, as executive felt Sheen had "done too much television" and did not have a wide enough appeal to film audiences. As an alternative, Winner cast Chris Sarandon, whom he had been impressed by in his role in ''Dog Day Afternoon'' (1975) as well as several Broadway theatre productions. Sarandon later commented that he regretted accepting the role: "When I first read it, I thought it had a chance of being a first-rate picture. I liked the book a lot...  but I had no fun making it...  It was the only picture I've done that I felt was not a success on any level, personally or professionally."

A number of Golden Age Hollywood stars were cast in supporting roles, including Ava Gardner, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, José Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, Eli Wallach, and Sylvia Miles. Christopher Walken was given a minor supporting role as Detective Rizzo, while the film marked Beverly D'Angelo's first feature screen appearance; Winner later stated that he felt Walken and D'Angelo should have portrayed the lead roles of Alison and Michael. Richard Dreyfuss also appears in the in an uncredited role toward the beginning of the film.

Winner chose to cast Gardner in the role of the realtor, Miss Logan, because he felt "every time I rent an apartment in New York, I get it from a realtor who looks just like Ava. She keeps saying she's a lousy actress, but she's very good." After working with Gardner on the film, Winner became a lifelong friend of hers.

Filming

Principal photography began in New York City on May 21, 1976 with a budget of $3.5 million. The external views of the house were taken from the block built at the west end of Remsen Street in Brooklyn and many of the film's locations are in Brooklyn Heights.

Winner was visually inspired by the depictions of the creatures of Hell as they appear in the works of Christopher Marlowe, Dante's '' Inferno'', and the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Shortly after the film's release, Winner revealed that many of the deformed persons featured in the finale were actually people with physical disabilities and abnormalities, whom he cast from hospitals and sideshows.

After the film's completion, Winner screened the final cut for Universal Pictures executives, whom he stated "almost committed suicide by doing a two-foot fall from their padded leather chairs."

Music

John Williams was originally hired to compose the film's score before being replaced with Gil Mellé.

Release

Box office

''The Sentinel'' was released theatrically by Universal Pictures on February 11, 1977 and was a mild box-office success. It grossed a total of $4 million in the United States, and was the 57th highest-grossing film of the year.

Critical response

Contemporaneous

By director Winner's account, ''The Sentinel'' received reviews that were "on the whole, very good." Kevin Thomas praised the film's performances and entertainment value, but noted that it lacked originality, writing: "Whether intended or not, ''The Sentinel'' seems above all a parody of every chiller dealing with the supernatural from '' Rosemary's Baby'' through ''The Exorcist'' to ''The Omen''. Indeed, the material is so derivative and therefore essentially unconvincing that it's hard to imagine how else it could have been played." Critic Peter Travers described the film as "one of those all-star movies featuring actors who give the impression of being in-between jobs... The shocking thing to me about ''The Sentinel'' is why actors such as Ferrer, Gardner, Kennedy, Meredith, Carradine, and Martin Balsam lend their names to it."

''Variety'' gave the film a negative review, writing "''The Sentinel'' is a grubby, grotesque excursion into religioso psychodrama, notable for uniformly poor performances by a large cast of familiar names and direction that is hysterical and heavy-handed." ''The New York Times'' called the film "dull", criticizing the film for its long stretches, but commended Raines' performance. John Simon of the National Review described ''The Sentinel'' as "dreadful". Film scholar Robert Bookbinder wrote in his 1982 book ''The Films of the Seventies'' the final sequence in which the "armies of Hell" terrorize Alison "is undoubtedly one of the most terrifying interludes in seventies cinema."

Modern

, ''The Sentinel'' holds an approval rating of 48% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews, with a rating average of 6/10.
Anthony Arrigo from Dread Central gave the film 3.5 out of 5 stars, writing, "''The Sentinel'' might be devoid of any big, memorable showstopper moments but it maintains enough of a chilling atmosphere to keep fright fans engaged." Brett Gallman from ''Oh, the Horror!'' gave the film a positive review, stating that, although it was not the best of the "demonic horror" subgenre, it was just as entertaining. Gallman also commended the film's script, performances and effective imagery.

David Pirie in '' Time Out'' was quite negative in his review, claiming ''The Sentinel'' was "just a mass of frequently incomprehensible footage, acted so badly that even the most blatant shocks count for little". Pirie criticised the movie for being derivative of ''Rosemary's Baby'', ''The Exorcist'' and ''The Omen'': "''The Sentinel'' seems little more than a pile of outtakes from recent supernatural successes." Robin Wood described ''The Sentinel'' as "the worst—most offensive and repressive—horror film of the 70s".

Ian Jane from DVD Talk awarded the film 3.5 out of 5 stars. In his conclusion, Jane wrote, "Michael Winner's ''The Sentinel'' is a gleefully perverse slice of seventies horror that makes no qualms about taking things in a few entirely unexpected directions while still sticking to some tried and true genre conventions. It's not a perfect film but it's definitely interesting and always entertaining."
The film was ranked #46 on Bravo's '' The 100 Scariest Movie Moments'' in 2004.

''TV Guide'' awarded the film 1/5 stars, calling it "a truly repulsive film". Jedd Beaudoin from PopMatters gave the film 1/10 stars, criticizing the film's lack of believability and incoherent plot.

Home media

The first home media release of this film was in 1985, under the MCA Home Video label. Universal Pictures Home Video released ''The Sentinel'' on DVD in 2004. In 2015, Scream Factory issued the film on Blu-ray with new bonus materials, including three audio commentaries.

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sentinel, The
1977 films
1977 horror films
1970s American films
1970s English-language films
1970s ghost films
1970s supernatural horror films
American haunted house films
American supernatural horror films
Demons in film
English-language horror films
Films about Catholicism
Films about landlords
Films about suicide
Films based on American horror novels
Films directed by Michael Winner
Films produced by Michael Winner
Films scored by Gil Mellé
Films set in apartment buildings
Films set in Baltimore
Films set in Brooklyn
Films set in hell
Films set in Manhattan
Films with screenplays by Michael Winner
Religious horror films
Universal Pictures films