Review of The Sentinel (1977) by Jean-Francois V — 24 Jul 2009

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 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.).