By Melissa Antoinette Garza
“Blind….but then what does he look at?”
THE SENTINEL (1977) is one of the most frightening and fulfilling films of all time. It is on my list of favorites and on my list of movies I won’t watch alone. The characters play the parts so naturally and the dialogue is captivating. It was made in the heyday of horror when the filmmakers understood what made the average person hide their eye and turn away. It was a time when they were able to capture and express real human emotion. The actors were brilliant and brought a sense of genuineness to their productions. Whether looking at THE STEPFORD WIVES,RACE WITH THE DEVIL, THE OMEN, HALLOWEEN, ROSEMARY’S BABY, or BURNT OFFERINGS the characters and dialogue drove the production.
The women and men in the movies weren’t made to be flawless but their clothing and hair were simply what one would expect from the girl next door. When the individuals look average, it’s easy to be drawn in to the movie. Filmmakers today don’t understand this concept. They cast the hot chicks and the sexy men with six packs who constantly strut without a shirt regardless if it makes sense to be topless or not. The movies today don’t build up the suspense, it’s simply in your face from the get go. The horror is immediate which is ineffective. One needs to be lulled into a sense of normalcy only to slowly bring the strange occurrences forth until we’re hell-bent in the middle of it.
In The Sentinel, Alison (Christina Raines) finds her father in the midst of an orgy. She accidentally kills him in terror. Years later, she lives in Brooklyn Heights and can’t decide whether to marry her boyfriend Michael (Chris Sarandon) instead she moves into a beautiful apartment in Brooklyn Heights. The rent is surprisingly affordable and the building is gorgeous. The only oddity is the blind priest, Father Halliran (John Carradine) who sits in front of the window 24 hours a day. Alison is unsettled by this and asks, “Blind….but then what does he look at?”
She is soon greeted by Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith) a tenant who takes a keen interest in her. Later she meets Gerde (Sylvia Miles) and Sandra (Beverly D’Angelo), two lesbians who are very overly-sexualized; so much so, that Sandra masturbates in front of Alison.
Alison is disturbed by it and visits her real estate agent Miss Logan (Ava Gardner) who tells her the building has been vacant other than the blind priest who is on the top floor. She even goes into each door where the tenants supposedly live and show aged furniture and empty walls. Alison starts believing she’s crazy until she sees Charles’s cat eating a heart. She ends up in the hospital where Michael comes to help. He shows that the people she claims to know have died years ago. They reside in a book where murderers that have been executed are shown.
Michael isn’t convinced that Alison is lying or crazy. They go to the house together to see if something strange is going on. She goes through the books on the shelves and points out that one has the same Latin writing on each page of the book. Michael looks at it and sees it is in English. He takes out a piece of paper and has Alison write the words down. Though Michael isn’t completely familiar with the language he sees that she isn’t lying and brings her writing to a translator which advises it’s from the book Paradise Lost.
Michael begins investigating and finds that every Priest or Nun who guarded the home were formally individuals who committed suicide and later converted to a member of the clergy.
The Sentinel is jam-packed with the greatest stars of all time. Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, Jerry Orbach, Burgess Meredith, William Hickey, Ava Gardner – the list goes on and on. Though some of the parts were small it’s quite interesting to see this line-up in one movie.
Burgess Meredith is one of my favorite actors. I’ve written about him several times in regard to his outstanding performances in THE TWILIGHT ZONE I’ve always thought the fact that he was blacklisted in 1950 was a tragedy. He was listed in the pamphlet Red Channel which listed him and 149 other people within the industry who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers. I applaud Meredith for not falling down to appease Senator Joseph McCarthy’s interrogations, but I wonder what amazing performances we were denied by the fascist regime’s witch hunt.
Meredith can play the most sympathetic characters and then he can display the most terrifying portrayals on screen. In the Sentinel he plays both sides of the coin though even when he is pretending to be sympathetic the hint of something sinister is shown. He was clever enough to play a kind old man but to reveal something in his eyes that showed the audience that the smile he wore was deceptive.
Christina Raines also shined in the lead. She portrayed Alison as a sweet woman who hid her suspicion when things seemed initially odd. Her descent into fear was shown in a way that was completely understandable. She questioned her own sanity, whether reality was a dream, and if what she was seeing were delusions.
I wish modern films would take a hint from the 70s and 80s in their filmmaking. Most punch you over and over again with horror never understanding the beauty of doing things methodically. The remake/reimagining of FRIGHT NIGHT or NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. are perfect examples. The originals to both worked much slower in their execution. The first act was always the build-up. You were able to get to know the characters and their stories. Even though the first death in Elm Street was rather quick, the storyline in-between ensured that the viewers championed on the side of the victims. Nowadays, the filmmakers take fore granted that the audience will automatically understand the mindset, sincerity, and heart of the protagonist. They assume that a relationship between the characters and viewers is immediate and that no work needs to be done to establish the connection. They’re wrong.
Could someone imagine THE EXORCIST without the scenes showing Regan (Linda Blair) joking around with her mother and being a playful innocent child? It was the drastic transition into the demon that shocked and terrified. To see her who we just learned was a normal fun kid, tortured and nearly killed made the reaction of the viewer so much more intense. Compare THE EXORCISTto most of the possession movies of today and you obtain a lot of frightening imagery, some cheap scares, a little story and less character development.
If you are a true fan of horror –unsatisfied with the remakes of PROM NIGHT and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, you’ll love THE SENTINEL. It’s absolutely horrifying. It’s a roller-coaster ride where things ease up and the tension relaxes only to come at you full throttle with sequences of horror that chill to the bone.
Overall Rating: 9/10
