As a young girl, Alison Parker attempted suicide after being traumatized by her father's sexual exploits. Now an elite fashion model, she moves to a Brooklyn Heights apartment building that houses a number of bizarre, eccentric tenants. After experiencing a string of disturbing occurrences, she attempts to uncover the building's sinister secret.
Cristina Raines Chris Sarandon Martin Balsam John Carradine José Ferrer Ava Gardner Arthur Kennedy Burgess Meredith Sylvia Miles Deborah Raffin Eli Wallach Christopher Walken Jerry Orbach Beverly D'Angelo Gary Allen Tresa Hughes Kate Harrington Jane Hoffman Elaine Shore Hank Garrett William Hickey Jeff Goldblum Nana Visitor Tom Berenger Richard Dreyfuss Robert Gerringer Diane Stilwell Charles Kimbrough Billie Perkins Show All…
La centinela, Centinela de los malditos, A Sentinela, La Sentinelle des maudits, Hexensabbat, Sentinel, Az őrszem, 魔屋, A Sentinela dos Malditos, Часовой, センチネル, 센티넬, Strażnik, Ondskans redskap
USAR
Germany18
UK15
Japan
Mexico
France16
Brazil
Colombia
Brazil
Colombia
France
Germany
Japan
Mexico
UK
USA
I’ve always wondered why this movie isn’t as well known as all the other “Satan is the WORST” movies that came out of the 70’s. It’s very good and very engaging and the ending is bot unsettling and terrifying and yet it’s not as well known as other similar movies. If it’s anything, it could be that it’s a little too “in your face” for mainstream audiences what with the Beverly D’angelo self slap n’tickle scene and the ending with the real life physically unique characters...but that’s exactly why I love it kids.
The cast is also pretty phenomenal: Chris Sarandon, Christina Raines, Ava Gardner, my man John Carradine, Sylvia Miles, very early roles for Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken,…
"The Sentinel" is late 70's horror effort directed by Michael Winner that focuses on the supernatural build with themes of demons and Hell. All of this is encompassed within the structured urban setting of New York, which is always and interesting change of pace than gothic typed old world setting. Usually, evil, superstition, and supernatural is consistent with themes of older existence, and so when it is place in a bustling context, it gives a constraint that it can be existent around every corner. This isn't to say that the actual building that featured in the film is the utmost modern, buts an ideation that was used at the time that evil can hit closer to home than one realizes.…
Winner is too flat and procedural-minded of a filmmaker to do anything remotely interesting with this kind of absurdly blatant Rosemary's Baby/The Exorcist copycat. Won't deny it has a few creepy moments and it's pretty fun to watch a stacked supporting cast of recognizable Hollywood greats like this play a bunch of quirky NYC inhabitants and/or demons but it's also strangely dull in spots as well. The premise felt like it was practically begging for one of those Italian horror guys of the 70s to spice it up with some genuinely unhinged surrealism.
The Sentinel is an ultra creepy supernatural slow burner with great atmosphere and suspense. It plays out similar to Rosemarys Baby but dials up the shock value a lot more. The ultimate trip through terror filled with frightening scenes of decaying dead, odd sex crazed neighbours, and the slow deterioration of the human mind due to slow building paranoia and fear.
Allison has moved into a new apartment building. At first it seems like the perfect home. It isn't long before strange things begin to occur causing Allison's mind to slowly unravel. Weird noises, haunting visuals, creepy neighbours and a mysterious figure living in a vacant room upstairs.
Filled with several unsettling scenes that hold up really well and freak…
Look it's no Rosemary's Baby but I'm a little surprised at what a muted reaction this got on here from people I follow. It's a pretty captivating late 70s supernatural horror film with a stacked cast. Nobody blows it out of the water but you don't always want the water blown out. Sometimes you just wanna sit by the pool.
The whole movie has the pacing and tone of a procedural. It's not looking to make waves. Personally I found this extremely effective because it let the moments of actual horror really surprise you. The scene where she re-kills the ghost of her extremely gaunt nude father is completely gnarly and it hits you on the side of the skull…
The Sentinel never really got the same recognition as other films along the same lines (Rosemary's Baby, The Omen etc) and it isn't hard to see why really as it's rather inconsistent and lacking in some areas but it's a more than interesting take on familiar themes and deserves to be more wildly seen! The plot basically follows a woman who experiences some strange occurrences after moving into an old apartment building. The ensemble cast is pretty amazing with some great cult names. The film is a strange mix of slow burn and schlocky horror. It's directed by Michael Winner so when the horror kicks in, it's often over the top! The plot is interesting throughout and builds a nice…
Yes, it steals loads of ideas from The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby and yes, I disapprove of Winner's use of real people with deformities in one particular scene (whom, in Winner's defence, must have consented). But The Sentinel is just so compulsively weird and contains one of the freakiest scenes ever put in a horror film - straight up. A trashy, but vastly underappreciated chiller.
On a personal note: I've stood outside the creepy brownstone apartment on Montague Terrace in Brooklyn, New York and couldn't shake the unpleasant feeling that a craggy old blind priest was up there in that top window...
A Rosemary's Baby riff - or rip-off, if I were being less generous - that has the ingredients for a compelling supernatural thriller but whose execution leaves a lot to be desired. The main problem is how predictable it all is - Alison Parker's involvement with the lineage of holy gatekeepers is obvious almost from outset, so nothing that transpires comes as much of a surprise and its difficult for director Michael Winner to effectively raise the stakes. He tries - managing to eke a suitably eerie atmosphere from the faded grandeur of the apartment block setting. It also leans heavily into religious mythos; far too much Catholic orthodoxy for this Godless heathen's taste! Cristina Raines isn't bad as the…
You see the cast for this and you're all, "This is going to be the greatest movie ever made" and then you watch the movie and you're all, "Okay, this is DEFINITELY not the greatest film ever made.
When I added The Sentinel to my Christopher Walken project, I knew he would have minimal screen time, but pairing the legendary actor with Micheal Winner’s (Death Wish) and his batshit insane cinematic predilections wasn’t something I could pass up. It turns out I was right, Walken has little to do in The Sentinel, but Winner doesn’t miss an opportunity to load his movie (especially the last thirty minutes) with oddball flourishes and horny characters.
A big shout out goes to a pre-National Lampoon’s Vacation Beverly D’Angelo, who aggressively masterbates in front of her neighbor without breaking eye contact — even when she smells her fingers afterward, Mary Katherine Gallagher style. That shit was something else — D’Angelo out Walkening Walken.
Respect.
1st Michael Winner
In the words of Jack Torrance, I'm outlining a new writing project. It's early days but it'll likely revolve around demonic bodies, demonic possession and disability in horror cinema across Europe and the US, looking at how difference can be read as virtuous or dangerous in a variety of contexts. I was discussing this with Nick Langdon earlier and he mentioned that I should check this out and oh boy, I'm glad I did. This has so much weirdness around disability here, not just the sideshow performers and hospital patients (!) who play the denizens of Hell but in the blind Sentinel themselves, a figure of purity against the forces of darkness. Then there's Alison's curious fainting…
This is a good copy of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist", just in a different league. The evil little brother of his big idols takes it to the next level and creates even stranger characters and extra nightmarish visions and flashbacks that could easily have come from a scary Renaissance painting. Nudity and lust combined with deformation and illness. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes beautifully bizarre and quite atmospheric, sometimes surreal and scary. Never extremely exciting, but the movie's uncanny atmosphere carries it all the way to a finale that is sure to stick in your mind. A bit weird, a bit trashy, a bit scandalous.
