The Sentinel poster & wallpaper

Arthur Kennedy, Ava Gardner, Beverly D'Angelo

A fashion model moves into an apartment in a house where she begins having strange physical problems, trouble sleeping at night, and some nasty flashbacks of her attempted suicide. She complains to th...( read more  read more... )e real estate agent of the noise caused by her strange neighbors, but finds out that the house is only occupied by a blind priest and herself, and ultimately discovers that she has been put in the house for a reason.

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56% liked it

385 ratings

R, 92 min.

Directed by: Michael Winner

Release Date: January 7, 1977

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DVD Release Date: September 7, 2004

Stats: 131 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (131)

  • RCCLBC
    September 30, 2009
    RCCLBC
    Don't let this impressive cast list fool you...most of them are in very minor roles. Though it is still fun seeing them in their "swinging 70's" mode. Christopher Walken (in a nearly speechless role) as a police detective "side-kick. Beverly D'Angelo as a lesbian/nymphet. Ava ...( read more)Gardner (gorgeous & brilliant) as a real estate agent!

    The film itself almost has a "made for 70's tv" feel to it. And suffers at times from some really bad dialog and (sadly) from the poor acting of the lead actress (Cristina Raines) who I was just not impressed with AT ALL. She wasn't even believable as a fashion model! How difficult is that? Just stand there with a blank look on your face and don't eat anything! :P

    That said, the film does at times have a nice eerie feel to it and is not without some truly creepy moments.

    Turn off all the lights (and any high hopes) and just enjoy it.
  • puffchunk
    April 29, 2009
    puffchunk
    Great cast. Too bad Jeff Goldblum and Chris Walken had such small parts. Alsmost to the point of needlessness, I think Walken said 1 line in the whole movie. Had some fun parts, but I was finding myself wishing there was more crazy messed up stuff.
  • TheMichiganMauler
    October 14, 2009
    TheMichiganMauler
    One of those 70's horror movie gems. For true horror fans, this movie does not disappoint. The visuals in this movie were astounding for the era and definitely pushed the envelope.
  • catesglt
    September 30, 2009
    catesglt
    I watched this years ago on reg. TV. This was much better with many scenes that were deleted for reg TV viewing. a very young Christopher Walken. Fun to watch
  • xxxcli213xxx
    September 30, 2009
    xxxcli213xxx
    no thanks not my thing
  • mdavidct
    September 30, 2009
    mdavidct
    2 scary but really scary scenes and creepy an crazy things but still the movie don't manage to entretain all the time
  • sleepykiss
    September 30, 2009
    sleepykiss
    CSarandon has always been sexy, yet so creepy lol. A classic.
  • mikaelblomqvist88
    September 13, 2009
    mikaelblomqvist88
    As i can recall I've never been this annoyed by music in a movie before. This movie has music way too often and it doesn't fit at all. For example spooky music plays when there is nothing spooky to be seen. This even has an opposite effect making the scenes silly. There are also ...( read more)alot of pointless cuts and camera angles which are distracting. It doesn't matter much though since they won't distract you from anything important. There is really nothing interesting about this movie at all. It's not scary and the acting is mediocre at best.
    The plot is badly told and I didn't understand the reasons for the characters actions. Overall this is a lame religious horror movie. Go watch The Omen or The Beyond instead.
  • samanthaseaotter
    July 26, 2009
    samanthaseaotter
    The book was much creepier but the movie is creepy enough. Worth watching if you like those "destiny" type horror movies. Very strange to see Sylvia Miles as a young woman.
  • jfvirey
    July 25, 2009
    jfvirey
    If I had to describe "The Sentinel" as a cross between two films I know, I would say "The Devil's Advocate" and "Suspiria." With the former, it shares the plot elements of a very beautiful lawyer's wife moving into a new apartment in New York and starting to have visions that may...( read more) either be the result of psychosis or a sensitivity to the demonic (there is also another big parallel which I am not revealing for fear of spoilers.) And with the latter, it shares the year of production, the gore, and the medicated heroine running around at night in a gothic old house filled with threatening characters.

    "The Sentinel" is a film I appreciated on many different levels. One astonishing thing about it is its cast, which is almost a recapitulation of eighty years of Hollywood history, from Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith and Jose Ferrer who had already been in the business for three decades or more (or even John Carradine, who first appeared in 1930), to new faces that would become stars in the following decades (like Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken and even a twenty-year old Nana Visitor, billed as Nana Tucker, in her first movie cameo ever, appearing as the wife of a young Tom Berenger, in his own second big screen appearance!) And reviving the 1970s for me (apart from the great "period" clothes and the style of horror) were two beautiful actresses whom I hadn't thought of for years but who were childhood crushes of mine: Cristina Raines in the lead role (always pretty despite the virtual absence of make up and the livid faces, and very sexy in a nuisette) and Deborah Raffin (whom I remembered from the 1979 "Mind Over Murder", a TV movie about a girl with visions of a bald psychopath, if my memory is correct.)

    Another thing I really appreciated about the film is its positive depiction of the Catholic church, and its taking seriously the danger of damnation, the mortality of some sins and the power of repentance (though the "confession" presented here is obviously not sacramental.) How many times do you see a character returning to the Faith in a major motion picture, compared to the numerous lapsed Catholics that have been portrayed?

    I was curious to know whether the author of the original novel, Jeffrey Konvitz, was himself a Catholic, but I couldn't find any relevant information about him, except for the fact that he divorced his first wife and wrote and produced a "Police Academy"-type of comedy about a Jewish summer camp (before moving on to classier fare such as "Cyborg 2" and "Bloodsport 2.")

    Although the film remained without a sequel, the novel was itself followed by "The Guardian" and "The Apocalypse", if a blurb I found for the latter can be trusted (SPOILERS: "She was the sole barrier between humanity and the forces of satanic evil pent up since the Fall from Grace. Hers was the most terrible penance of all; chosen for her sins, she had been committed to a living death, a blind nightmare in which the only reality was the reality of her demonic adversary, and the awful powers she had been endowed with to constrain him.")

    I wouldn't say "The Sentinel" is a great film, and there are some aspects of it I didn't like that much (especially the use of real-life "freaks" to represent the damned.) It contains a few visions of orgies, Beverley d'Angelo in a rather grotesque masturbation scene, and a few fellinian bare-breasted women (with the occasional penchant for necrophagia), earning it an "O" rating from the USCCB (which also objected to its "gross violence", a phrase still applicable more than twenty years later, though the make up SFX are a little "transparent".) But at the very least, it provides a nice change of decade and, despite its imagery, I think it might do more good than harm to your soul (I have read one very hostile review of the book by an anti-Catholic, which corroborates my point.)

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