The Sentinel

R

Released Jan 7, 1977

1h 31m

Horror

LGBTQ+

TRAILER

for The Sentinel: Trailer 1

List

45%

20 Reviews

Tomatometer

44%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

A New York City model with a troubled past, Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) decides to make some changes in her life. Breaking up with her boyfriend, Michael (Chris Sarandon), Alison relocates to an apartment in a brownstone building where the only other tenant is a withdrawn blind priest (John Carradine). After experiencing strange occurrences, Alison begins to realize why the holy man is present -- the building has an evil presence that must be kept in check at all costs.

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Red B

I get the start of it, the ending, and the basic premise but everything else in between is a convuluted mess. The editing is terrible. This is very jumpy with transitions at times, it feels like when she moves in stuff just happens, the second half Alison basically disappears and Michael becomes the main focus and all his segment does is just explain the plot ina REALLY boring way, and its worth saying again it jumps around a lot. This is trying to be a psychological thriller and a Davinci Code/Exorcist movie and can't figure out how to mold the two together in a visually interesting way. This actually starts out half decent and feels like its going to be a Haunting type of movie but the strong atmosphere and camerawork to match doesn't keep up afterwards. The ending is decent and memorable though. I get what happens but I don't really get why it happens. It's explained in a really boring way. The acting is just ok also depsite having a All Star cast. Alison is given almost no character and just a pretty face to look at. Same for Michael and the supporting cast also. The music is very boring also. And the pacing isn't that good either despite the interesting ending. This really squanders a interesting premise and gets lost in the shaky editing, boring plot expose that drags (Really this is where it lost me), and uninteresting characters. I can't recommend this to anyone even fans of the actors in this because there barely in it.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

09/28/23

Full Review

Taylor L

Sort of a dull Rosemary's Baby sans baby but with Burgess Meredith giving a birthday party for his cat. The Sentinel wants desperately to be a psychological thriller with a protagonist losing her grip on reality, but just copies the framework that Roman Polanski made popular, replaced its genuine tension with generic haunted house subplots, and adds uninspired relationship and cop theatrics on top of it. Shame too, because director Michael Winner (mostly known for the Death Wish franchise) seems to have unintentionally struck a rich vein of talent in the supporting cast - Burgess Meredith, Ava Gardner, Eli Wallach, and John Carradine from the old guard, and Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum taking their earliest steps in film, among others. Shame that they're mostly wasted here, as the script feels very procedural and uninspired despite an interesting premise, taking blueprints from much more impactful and effective horror films without understanding their execution and leaving behind an ineffective pastiche. Bland, far from scary, mostly a chore to get through apart from a high-energy finale when things start to actually happen. (1.5/5)

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

09/17/22

Full Review

robert p

Not a very good movie thus my *2* star review!!

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This is a classic horror movie. It's like a gateway to hell the apartment building. The woman that rented out the apartment was the only Tennant besides a priest but she kept meeting people that lived there which made the movie creepy. She kept meeting people that weren't there. People just kept popping up and Everytime she told the landlord about it she would show her around that no one else lived there which was creepy as hell. If you never saw this movie give it a watch

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

Full Review

justin t

This took the brooding suspense of Rosemary's Baby (1968) and the mythology of The Exorcist (1973) and mashed together a slow psychological horror. My biggest gripe was that it wasn't scary enough. There was one really scary scene around the middle that was so effective in building tension and then reaching a horrific climax with genuine fear long the way. Other than that and the ending, that was a bit creepy, this was a little disappointing. The pace is slow as most films were back in the seventies. This is well acted and suitably directed. It suffers from blandness when compared to much better films in the same genre from the same era. I didn't like the complete lack of supernatural special effects. I had to think. It would have been a lot scarier if I was a Christian.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Michael Winner adapts the best-selling horror novel by Jeffery Konvitz starring Chris Sarandon, Cristina Raines, the late Burgess Meredith, the late Jerry Orbach, the late Sylvia Miles, Beverly D' Angelo, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Walken Alison is a New York City model with a troubled past, she decides to make some changes in her life Her father passed away and she had a near-attempted suicide seeing him do something unthinkable during her youth Breaking up with her boyfriend, Michael Alison then relocates to an apartment in a brownstone building where the only other tenant is a withdrawn blind priest But soon after she experiences strange occurrences, Alison begins to realize why the holy man is present -- the building has an evil presence that must be kept in check at all costs Could it be a sign of the devil? Will they convert her to an eternal damnation of servitude? The movie moves by quick but isn't as scary as you'd think More of a slow descent into madness and hysteria One woman questioning her sanity as ghostly occurrences start affecting her The word sentinel is also a term for a guardian defending earth from the dark forces of the underworld Alison could be chosen to be the next sentinel or join their evil ranks The real terror doesn't come up as usual until the very end For low budget horror it's competent and eerie Cristina Raines plays the perfect amount of vulnerable, kind, shock, fragile, and lost individual The ending is pretty bold if it does feel cheating in areas Not great horror but quick and to the point

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

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Michael Winner

Director

Cristina Raines

Alison Parker

Ava Gardner

Miss Logan

Chris Sarandon

Michael Lerman

Martin Balsam

Prof. Ruzinsky

John Carradine

Fr. Francis Matthew Halloran

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The Sentinel: Trailer 1

2:31

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David Pirie

Time Out

The only frightening thing about The Sentinel is its director's mind.

Sep 28, 2018

Full Review

Variety Staff

Variety

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.

Sep 28, 2018

Full Review

Kristen Lopez

AwardsCircuit.com

The scene stealer, though, is Burgess Meredith as Alison's neighbor, Charles Chazen.

Sep 28, 2018

Full Review

Tony Crawley

Starburst

A mess, it is a s-l-o-w mess. Slow-witted, at that.

Jul 27, 2022

Full Review

Chris Alexander

Alexander On Film

A disturbing, sick, often campy and occasionally unspeakably horrifying theological mystery ripe with cheap, visceral thrills.

Apr 20, 2021

Full Review

Ruth Batchelor

Los Angeles Free Press

[Michael Winner] watched too many Fellini films and got only the grotesqueries out of them, and made The Sentinel not worth watching.

Oct 25, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

A New York City model with a troubled past, Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) decides to make some changes in her life. Breaking up with her boyfriend, Michael (Chris Sarandon), Alison relocates to an apartment in a brownstone building where the only other tenant is a withdrawn blind priest (John Carradine). After experiencing strange occurrences, Alison begins to realize why the holy man is present -- the building has an evil presence that must be kept in check at all costs.

Director: Michael Winner
Screenwriter: Michael Winner, Jeffrey Konvitz
Distributor: GoodTimes Home Video [us], Universal Pictures, MCA/Universal Pictures [us]
Production Co: Universal Pictures
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, LGBTQ+
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 7, 1977, Original
Release Date (Streaming): May 18, 2016
Runtime: 1h 31m
Sound Mix: Mono

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