Alison Parker, a fashion model with a history of suicide attempts due to childhood trauma, moves into a historic Brooklyn Heightsbrownstone. The top floor apartment is occupied by a blind priest, Father 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 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 contacts his corrupt detective friend 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.
Universal Pictures purchased the film rights to the novel 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,[1] who was offered the project by Universal executive Ned Tanen when the two met at a party in Los Angeles.[5]
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.[6] 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.[7] 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.[6] 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."[8]
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.[6] Christopher Walken was given a minor supporting role as a detective, 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.[9] Richard Dreyfuss also appears in the in an uncredited role toward the beginning of the film. [10]
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."[3] After working with Gardner on the film, Winner became a lifelong friend of hers.[11]
Filming
Principal photography began in New York City on May 21, 1976[1] with a budget of $3.5 million.[3] 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.[12]
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.[3] 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.[13]
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."[3]
Music
John Williams was originally hired to compose the film's score before being replaced with Gil Mellé.[1]
Release
Box office
The Sentinel was released theatrically by Universal Pictures on February 11, 1977 and was a mild box-office success.[10] It grossed a total of $4 million in the United States, and was the 57th highest-grossing film of the year.[4]
Critical response
Contemporaneous
By director Winner's account, The Sentinel received reviews that were "on the whole, very good."[10]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."[14] 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."[15]
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."[16]The New York Times called the film "dull", criticizing the film for its long stretches, but commended Raines' performance.[17]John Simon of the National Review described The Sentinel as "dreadful".[18] 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."[13]
Modern
As of January 2023[update], The Sentinel holds an approval rating of 48% on the review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews, with a rating average of 6/10.[19]
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."[20] 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.[21]
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".[22] 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."[22]Robin Wood described The Sentinel as "the worst—most offensive and repressive—horror film of the 70s".[23]
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."[24]
The film was ranked #46 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments in 2004.[25][26][27]
TV Guide awarded the film 1/5 stars, calling it "a truly repulsive film".[28] Jedd Beaudoin from PopMatters gave the film 1/10 stars, criticizing the film's lack of believability and incoherent plot.[29]
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.[30] In 2015, Scream Factory issued the film on Blu-ray with new bonus materials, including three audio commentaries.[31]
Alleman, Richard (2005). New York: The Movie Lover's Guide: The Ultimate Insider Tour of Movie New York. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN978-0-767-91634-9.
