Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Executscan Expected more

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

WisdomsHammer This movie isn't for everyone. I'm honestly not sure why I like it as much as I do. Any movie I find myself watching over again is a good one, for me. I watch this at least once a year. There's just something about it that delivers for me. My biggest complaint is that the movie takes so long to get going and that the weird events leading up to the climax are more bizarre than scary and too many scenes have little to do with moving the story along. It's not likely to hold the attention of many viewers in this age of short attention spans. Maybe in saying so, I'm showing my own lack of attention span.The movie's central character is Alison Parker, played quite well by Cristina Raines. According to the trivia section here, Kate Jackson was offered the part but turned it down. Cristina Raines is a perfect stand in for Kate, but I would have loved to have seen what Kate would have done with this. Here's my attempt to sum up the overall plot with the interesting parts of the movie (major spoilers ahead): Alison is a successful model who is in a serious relationship with a successful lawyer. She ends up renting a dream apartment in New York for an incredibly reasonable price because she's not quite ready for marriage and wants her own place. She notices a spooky priest staring out of the window of the apartment above her but the real estate agent says he's a blind recluse and isn't anyone to be worried about. Alison wonders what he's staring at if he's blind. After she moves in, a strange assortment of other tenants led by Burgess Meredith's character hold a birthday party for a cat and invite Alison to join them. She finds them all odd, but has a great time anyway. When she mentions this to the real estate agent later, she is told that no one but she and the priest are living in the building, and that no one else has for years. It's discovered that the names of all those attending the party are murderers who were put to death. Alison hears strange noises from the priest's room above her during the night and her health deteriorates as she suffers from intense headaches and trouble sleeping. Her boyfriend investigates and finds out that the priest in question has a long line of predecessors who became priests or nuns immediately after each of their predecessor's deaths. And Alison is next in line. All of them, including Alison, had attempted suicide and apparently their penance is a lifelong vigilance watching over the gates of hell, where the building stands. (I think.)That sounds pretty intriguing, right? Well, I think my main gripe about the movie is that too many scenes have little to do with the central plot. The ones that do are sometimes just bizarre in a blatant attempt to shock the audience (a newly introduced Beverly D'Angelo masturbating in a leotard in front of a very uncomfortable Alison is a prime example). The ending felt like kind of a mess as well. I think maybe I like the idea of this more than the execution of it and find myself forgiving it for what I see as flaws.Possibly the craziest thing of all about this movie is that besides the number of celebrities in the main cast, there is a number of now well known actors who were in this thing before they got famous. Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum (whose voice was apprently dubbed, which I find hilarious), Jerry Orbach, and Tom Beringer. They have such tiny parts that they aren't a reason to watch this, but it was fun to see them scattered throughout the movie.I've heard other reviewers call this Rosemary's Baby meets The Exorcist, and I can see why they say that, but while it describes the general feel of the movie, it gives the movie overall way too much credit as far as effective execution.If you like slow burning 70s horror movies in general, I think you'll definitely want to check this out.

hellholehorror This took the brooding suspense of Rosemary's Baby (1968) and the mythology of The Exorcist (1973) and mashed together a slow psychological horror. My biggest gripe was that it wasn't scary enough. There was one really scary scene around the middle that was so effective in building tension and then reaching a horrific climax with genuine fear long the way. Other than that and the ending, that was a bit creepy, this was a little disappointing. The pace is slow as most films were back in the seventies. This is well acted and suitably directed. It suffers from blandness when compared to much better films in the same genre from the same era. I didn't like the complete lack of supernatural special effects. I had to think. It would have been a lot scarier if I was a Christian.

a_baron I saw this maybe three decades ago, and the only thing I remembered was a line towards the end. The film is every bit as good as I didn't remember it. Our damsel is a model in a small way, she makes TV advertisements. She also has a troubled past; she's a lapsed Catholic who in addition to turning her back on the Great JC has been known to slash her wrist. Moving to the Big Apple she is under pressure to marry her lawyer boyfriend, but possibly because of his recent widower status she has reservations. She takes an expensive apartment at a knock down rent, and has mixed feelings about her neighbours, which turn to confusion when she is told they don't exist. The obvious conclusion is that in view of her previous issues she is going gaga, but her boyfriend thinks not with good reason, and begins to dig deeper. There is a lot more and early on a bit of humour, but broadly speaking there are three possibilities: this is a film about madness, a criminal conspiracy, or something genuinely supernatural. It is not giving too much away to say that criminals and lunatics play only a minor part in the end.

skybrick736 Although, The Sentinel has received more popularity and distinction as time has progressed, there still remains to be a really mixed mood on how good of a horror film it actually is. The film, made with obviously an Italian influence in the United States is a horror film that really keeps the viewers guessing throughout. Also, with many 70's horror films there is a typical slow, work into the climax. The Sentinel goes against this perception having a few frightening scenes occur unexpectedly. That doesn't account for scenes showing the excessive amounts of unnecessary nudity by unattractive actresses.With a decent, creepy story, which isn't too confusing, leads to the incredible cast that was pulled together. An all-star cast, included fine leading performances from Chris Sarandon and Cristina Raines. There was also a mixture of older, legendary performers (John Carradine, Eli Wallach, Martin Balsam, Jose Ferrer Ava Gardner) and upcoming household film stars (Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, Beverly D'Angelo). With a spooky atmosphere and a popular religious sentiment for the time period, it's still puzzling why the film didn't succeed like it could have. The Sentinel should be given more credit as an entertaining, unsettling film but clearly the masses have spoken, not finding the film with a similar high-esteem.