Load of rubbish!!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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

This movie isn't for everyone. I'm honestly not sure why I like it as much as I do. Any movie I find myself watching over again is a good one, for me. I watch this at least once a year. There's just something about it that delivers for me. My biggest complaint is that the movie takes so long to get going and that the weird events leading up to the climax are more bizarre than scary and too many scenes have little to do with moving the story along. It's not likely to hold the attention of many viewers in this age of short attention spans. Maybe in saying so, I'm showing my own lack of attention span.The movie's central character is Alison Parker, played quite well by Cristina Raines. According to the trivia section here, Kate Jackson was offered the part but turned it down. Cristina Raines is a perfect stand in for Kate, but I would have loved to have seen what Kate would have done with this. Here's my attempt to sum up the overall plot with the interesting parts of the movie (major spoilers ahead): Alison is a successful model who is in a serious relationship with a successful lawyer. She ends up renting a dream apartment in New York for an incredibly reasonable price because she's not quite ready for marriage and wants her own place. She notices a spooky priest staring out of the window of the apartment above her but the real estate agent says he's a blind recluse and isn't anyone to be worried about. Alison wonders what he's staring at if he's blind. After she moves in, a strange assortment of other tenants led by Burgess Meredith's character hold a birthday party for a cat and invite Alison to join them. She finds them all odd, but has a great time anyway. When she mentions this to the real estate agent later, she is told that no one but she and the priest are living in the building, and that no one else has for years. It's discovered that the names of all those attending the party are murderers who were put to death. Alison hears strange noises from the priest's room above her during the night and her health deteriorates as she suffers from intense headaches and trouble sleeping. Her boyfriend investigates and finds out that the priest in question has a long line of predecessors who became priests or nuns immediately after each of their predecessor's deaths. And Alison is next in line. All of them, including Alison, had attempted suicide and apparently their penance is a lifelong vigilance watching over the gates of hell, where the building stands. (I think.)That sounds pretty intriguing, right? Well, I think my main gripe about the movie is that too many scenes have little to do with the central plot. The ones that do are sometimes just bizarre in a blatant attempt to shock the audience (a newly introduced Beverly D'Angelo masturbating in a leotard in front of a very uncomfortable Alison is a prime example). The ending felt like kind of a mess as well. I think maybe I like the idea of this more than the execution of it and find myself forgiving it for what I see as flaws.Possibly the craziest thing of all about this movie is that besides the number of celebrities in the main cast, there is a number of now well known actors who were in this thing before they got famous. Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum (whose voice was apprently dubbed, which I find hilarious), Jerry Orbach, and Tom Beringer. They have such tiny parts that they aren't a reason to watch this, but it was fun to see them scattered throughout the movie.I've heard other reviewers call this Rosemary's Baby meets The Exorcist, and I can see why they say that, but while it describes the general feel of the movie, it gives the movie overall way too much credit as far as effective execution.If you like slow burning 70s horror movies in general, I think you'll definitely want to check this out.

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.

"The Sentinel" is a remarkably creepy horror film adapted by director Michael Winner ("Death Wish") from the novel by Jeffrey Konvitz. Cristina Raines stars as Alison Parker, a model who's not ready to move in with her lawyer boyfriend, Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon) because she still wants some independence. The apartment that she finds is in a Brooklyn brownstone with a scenic view. The neighbours are all decidedly odd, and Alison experiences enough spooky visions for Michael to get concerned and do some sleuthing into these supposed other tenants, including an aged blind priest (John Carradine) who lives alone upstairs.This film doles out its horror content sparingly, coming up with some good moments but never really cutting loose until its memorable climax, which some people feel is tasteless and exploitative. It's a twisty and entertaining story, told in a reasonably compelling manner, with some solid atmosphere. It definitely makes you feel uncomfortable at times. It also delivers an amusing, bizarre moment wherein a young Beverly D'Angelo pleasures herself in front of Raines. The location shooting in NYC is effective, as is the haunting score by Gil Melle ('Kolchak: The Night Stalker').Casting director Cis Corman really needs to take a bow, considering how many familiar and highly respected actors are in this thing, veterans and then-newcomers alike. Rather than listing them, I'll just let the prospective viewer discover them for themselves. Eli Wallach as an investigating detective and Burgess Meredith as a solicitous neighbour are particularly fun. Raines is an attractive lead, no doubt, and delivers a decent, sympathetic performance in the lead. Sarandon is fine as the morally compromised love interest (Michael was married at the time he began his relationship with Alison). In addition to the freaky climax and the scene with D'Angelo, viewers will be amused by the "birthday party for the cat" sequence.The makeup effects are the work of Robert Laden and the legendary Dick Smith, although people with real facial deformities were also utilized.Seven out of 10.