Scream Stream 2023: The Sentinel

Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) is a beautiful and somewhat successful fashion model and actress in New York City who has had a troubled past emotionally and attempted suicide on two separate occasions.  The first, when she caught her father in a hedonistic orgy, and second when the wife of the man she was in love with committed suicide due to their affair.  After her hospital stay, she moves in with her lover, successful lawyer Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon) but feels that she needs her own space and so decides to find an apartment of her own.  She finally finds a historic brownstone in Brooklyn Heights that had been converted into apartments.  The building seems to be occupied by a host of eccentric characters, Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith) an older man with a bird and a cat who seems nice and harmless but the lesbian couple, Gerde (Sylvia Miles) and Sandra (Beverly D’Angelo) are a bit too much for Alison. Soon after moving in, Alison begins experiencing fainting spells and migraines, which put her work life in trouble.  She also learns that the building is vacant besides one other tenant, a blind priest on the top floor, meaning that all the other tenants she has met don’t really exist. Alison has an episode where she believes she has killed someone just before collapsing in the street covered in blood, but no body is found.  The police get involved and are suspicious of Michael as the believe he killed his wife and made it look like suicide.  Michael begins investigating the building and what he finds out shocks him and the race to protect Alison from her destined fate begins.  What is the secret of the house, and can Michael save Alison or is she doomed to her fate?  Watch and find out!

This is one of those movies with a cast of thousands that consists of both well-established famous actors and some very young up-and-coming actors that would soon make it big in Hollywood.  Chris Sarandon had just had his big break a couple years earlier garnering his Oscar nomination for Dog Day Afternoon. You have the established actors John Carradine, Burgess Meredith, Ava Gardner, Sylvia Miles and Jose Ferrer alongside newcomers Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, Jerry Orbach, Beverly D’Angelo, and Nana Visitor all in supporting roles.  The film was based on the 1974 Novel of the same name by Jeffrey Konvitz who also co-wrote the script with director Michael Winner. The film was met with mixed reviews, with the script and performances praised, but lacking in originality, seeming almost a parody of other thrillers in the same supernatural genre.

I enjoyed the film for the most part but understand the critics’ comments.  Where the performances and dialogue are good and the story is promising, it never achieves a “wow” factor for me.  What is happening to Alison is a bit predictable. I would like to have also seen a bit more about what made Alison so special and why she was chosen. But what sets this movie aside from others is the eccentric characters which are very fun to watch.  I also liked Michael’s character unfolding the mystery and his own final fate is interesting.  There is some gore in one scene which I thought was a bit excessive for this particular film and the makeup on the “undead” at the end is a bit grotesque.  There is some great use of imagery and the visual aesthetics within the film are quite good.  If you enjoy 1970’s supernatural thrillers I would recommend watching this movie, even with its predictability and flaws.