If you’re a fan of ‘60s and ‘70s supernatural horror movies, then I’m sure you’ve already seen the big three, those being The Exorcist, The Omen, and Rosemary’s Baby. However, there’s another supernatural horror movie from that time period that you might not have seen, and that’s 1977’s The Sentinel.
If you’ve never seen it before, I honestly don’t blame you. Because unlike The Exorcist‘s up-and-down film series, The Omen and its own sequels and prequels), and Rosemary’s Baby (with Roman Polanski’s name attached to it), The Sentinel doesn’t have the same notoriety or fanbase.
That said, if you’re a fan of the subgenre, I actually feel like The Sentinel is a must-watch for a number of reasons (as well as a must-read, but I’ll get into that shortly). Here are just a few.
The Movie Is About An Apartment That’s Also A Gateway To Hell
Behind every good movie, there’s usually a good book, and The Sentinel is no exception. Based on the 1974 novel of the same name, The Sentinel is such a fantastic story that I think it’s even better than the novel version of The Exorcist. And yes, I’m dead serious.
When it comes to the film adaptation though? Well…I wouldn’t go so far to call it better than The Exorcist. That said, the plot of the film is similar to the book. It’s just the execution that could have used some refining.
The story focuses on a model named Alison (Cristina Raines) who moves into a brownstone apartment where there’s only one other tenant, that being a blind priest named Father Halliran (John Carradine). Halliran stares out the window all day, almost as if he’s guarding something (hence the title). Once Alison’s moved in, she starts having bizarre dreams, and once other people start moving into the apartment, things get even weirder.
The story gets a lot more tangled than that (Which I’ll get into next), but the important thing to know is that the priest is guarding the world from the gates of hell, which are located right in the apartment itself. Pretty cool, right?
It’s Just As Much A Mystery As It Is A Horror Movie
The cool thing about horror flicks is that they can also sometimes double as mystery movies, such as Se7en, and Get Out (both of which I would put on a list of the best horror movies of all time). Well, there’s also a number of mysteries behind The Sentinel, with those being: Who is Father Halliran, are there really tenants in the apartment, or is Alison just envisioning them, and what role does the Catholic Church have in this building?
In time, all is revealed, but the great thing about this story is how all of it is rolled out. We get to learn a great deal about the tenants, as well as Alison’s past, which isn’t entirely made clear early on in the film.
There’s also a tangled web that involves the police, the clergy, and an evil neighbor played by Burgess Meredith who I’ll get into soon since he deserves his own section. Anyway, a lot of the mystery turns this film into a psychological horror movie (Similar to Rosemary’s Baby), as we start to learn that many of the strange occurrences aren’t so random after all.
It all culminates in an intriguing story that probably wouldn’t be as good if there wasn’t also a mystery involved.
Rocky And Batman Great Burgess Meredith Plays A Bizarre Neighbor
When I mention Batman’s The Penguin, there are likely two images that pop in your head – That of Danny DeVito from Batman Returns, and that of Colin Farrell from the HBO series (to which I hope there’s a Season 2…even though I don’t think Colin Farrell desires that). But, do you know who first comes to my mind? Burgess Meredith, who played The Penguin in the ‘60s Batman series.
Meredith also, of course, played Mickey from the Rocky series, and real ones might know him from one of the best The Twilight Zone episodes, “Time Enough at Last,”…and, er, one of the weirdest The Twilight Zone episodes, “Mr. Dingle, the Strong”. Well, all of this is to say that Meredith had a really interesting career of both bizarre, and bold roles, and I’d say that his performance in The Sentinel is a mixture of both.
For one thing, Meredith plays a strange tenant named Charles Chazen, who in one scene, is actually hosting a birthday party for his cat. In this scene, he’s dancing and singing, but there’s an eerie quality to it. Well, it turns out that Meredith is a resident of Hell, and he wants Alison to join him.
It’s actually quite chilling. Meredith is exuberant for most of the film, but there’s a darkness to him that’s lurking at the bottom, making this one of Meredith’s most unique performances.
There Are Some Truly Spooky Visuals In This Film
Do you want to know the scariest scene in The Exorcist for me? It’s of course the spiderwalk scene down the stairs (which wasn’t even in the original theatrical release). How about The Omen? Well, obviously it’s the “It’s all for you!” scene, which I won’t even post here. For Rosemary’s Baby? Definitely the “Hail, Satan!” scene.
For The Sentinel? Well, there’s actually not one single moment that I find creepy, but rather, a series of spooky visuals that helped keep me on the edge throughout. For example, there are moments where Alison is hallucinating that her dead father is alive, and he tries to attack her, but the scene itself is shown in a way that is so off-putting and bizarre that it gives me the creeps.
There’s also Burgess Meredith’s unsettling performance, and the eerie priest who stares out the window, not looking at anything in particular (since he’s blind), but seeing evil all around him, as blindness is a trait of all of the sentinels, as we learn in the end.
There’s also the climax of the film, but that brings me to my last point, as it isn’t really scary. In fact, it’s really quite insulting, which I’ll get into now.
The Climax Is Quite Controversial, However, And Is Definitely The Worst Part Of The Movie
Not too long ago, I wrote about a horror movie from 1932 called Freaks, which featured actual sideshow attractions like a man with no limbs, and a series of little people. The story was controversial since it used real circus “freaks,” but at the story’s heart, it was about how these were actual human beings, and the real monsters were the people who tried to exploit them. It was actually pretty progressive in a way.
So, how is it that a movie that came out in 1977 could be so tone deaf? Because toward the end of the film, the gates of Hell open, and we’re greeted by some of its denizens. But, do you know what its director, Michael Winner, decided to do? He decided to use people with amputations and disabilities to represent demons from Hell.
And, like, eww. Just gross. I’m of course not saying that people with disabilities or amputations are gross. I’m saying that it’s gross that these people were used in an exploitative way, and it definitely pulls me out of the movie as a whole.
But, other than that, the movie is pretty good. It’s currently available to stream via Netflix subscription, so catch it now while you can if it sounds interesting to you.