Review of The Sentinel (1977) by Art S — 06 Feb 2015

Directed by Michael Winner, who had moved to Hollywood in the mid 1970's to make films like Scorpio (1973), Death Wish (1974) and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976). Here, he makes a horror film, adapting Jeffrey Konvitz's 1974 horror novel and Winner was able to talk a lot of great actors into being in the film.

It has varying results with a climax which is in poor taste by todays standards. In New York, model Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) has just moved into an apartment block in Brooklyn, there's a blind old priest Father Halliran (John Carradine), who looks out of the window on the top floor.

Alison has trouble sleeping, as she can hear someone in the apartment above her, and her neighbours Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith) and Gerde Engstrom (Sylvia Miles) hold a strange party for her. When Alison inquires with the estate agent Miss Logan (Ava Gardner), she says there are no other neighbours in the building apart from Father Halliran.

Then Alison starts having nightmares, and she soon learns the purpose of the apartment building. It's a very compelling horror film, and decent Michael Winner films are as rare as hen's teeth.

Here, he is able to create a tense and dark mood, on the surface it might look like another copy Rosemary's Baby or The Exorcist, but it does have an uncomfortable mood about it.