The Sentinel Review

Written by: MistressOf Horror   

The Sentinel,  based on a book, and as we all know -90 minutes is too short of a time to have so many characters. Our heroine (Cristina Raines ) and her boyfriend (Chris Sarandon) and a crowd of lots of great actors (Christopher Walken, Jerry Orbach, Beverly D'Angelo, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Berenger , William Hickey , oh the list goes on ). By constantly introducing new characters, the actual story gets a bit lost and muddled.

Which is a shame, because the story is kind of creepy. It's an exorcist type movieof sorts, with Raines being driven by evil forces that are trying to drive her to suicide, which will prevent her from becoming the next in a long line of holy guardians that can keep the doors to hell from opening or something like that .But our leading lady never seems to be aware of this, it's mostly her boyfriend who figures it out.

I love love the nightmare scene . it  is incredibly realistic, in that it actually is shown to be a dream, not some nonsense that is REVEALED to be a dream.

 Burgess Meredith tops himself here, playing a whacked out neighbor of Raines. He is introduced with a bird on his shoulder and a cat by his side, and then begins to confuse Eisenhower and Herbert Hoover. Later he throws the cat a birthday party. . Yeah did I tell you it was a weird movie ??

The ending scene features a bunch of actual circus freaks - who are cast as  demons. Most of them are REALLY deformed, something that director Michael Winner got in trouble for ( or so the rumor has it ) . It's a very freaky visual. which creeps me out to this day !

A great 70's quiet and creepy horror flick !