It’s 10, Montague Terrace, Brooklyn Heights…
When I walked along the Promenade that runs along the edge of Brooklyn Heights affording a spectacular view of lower Manhattan across the Hudson, it felt so familiar. Little did I know then that this wasn’t so much the constant exposure of the city on British screens but that I had spent a fairly intense couple of hours there watching this film in the old ABC Cinema in Lime Street, Liverpool. I remember going into town on my own to watch the latest horror film and would have gone record shopping in Probe Records as well before watching a film which was recommended by friends as in the same mould as The Exorcist and The Omen. The seventies was a golden era for modern horror in which the veneer of American civilisation was rudely compromised by demonic invasions.
On my first trip to New York ten years later, I’d again find the city familiar and, as I walked from my friends’ apartment where we were staying, I thought of Scott Walker’s song as we walked along Montague Terrace and on to the Boardwalk where I was filmed by a passing Japanese TV crew even after telling them I was English and wearing a Liverpool Football Club top. Now, almost 38 years later, I re-watched this film and finally connected the dots and have to say that, if nothing else, Michael Winner’s film is a superb record of Brooklyn Heights in all its brownstone glory as well as that particular view of the Twin Towers both of which I went up on later visits. Time moves on and not everything stays the same.
The Sentinel remains an unsettling film although it doesn’t hit me now with the same visceral force as in my teens when it was one of the first horror films I watched. It does feel very much like a “cash in” on the vogue for demonic horror following in the footsteps of Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist and The Omen but there’s an unhinged style all of its own. This you would expect from a film directed by Mr Winner, who also co-scripted with the author of the 1974 source novel, Jeffrey Konvitz. It has the pace and brashness you’d associate with his work – including the crass - something very much of it’s time as much as the flares and tight-fitting dresses of the discotheque Seventies.
We start off, Exorcist-style, visiting some senior Catholic priests in Northern Italy with Arthur Kennedy as Monsignor Franchino discussing the most serious of matters with José Ferrer credited as “robed figure”… the first of a number of high-end cameos in the film. The action shifts to New York’s Central Park and we’re in the world of high fashion with model Alison Parker (Cristina Raines) being photographed by an impossibly young Jeff Goldblum in the comfortably-shallow world of beachwear and slacks. Surely nothing could be less demonic?
Alison is going through a difficult time with her seriously ill father passing away and as she returns to the familial home after the funeral she has visions of herself as a schoolgirl discovering him in bed with two older women, nearly as great a shock for her as it was to me in 1977. Winner plays his first unsettling cards as we begin to understand why our heroine has had such a history of mental illness and even attempted suicides.
Her lawyer boyfriend, Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon) couldn’t be more reassuring and is a smart take-charge kind of guy who not only has her best interests at heart but also is a voice of reason not unwilling to face whatever “demons” she may encounter. Metaphorically speaking… he doesn’t know what’s coming…
Alison rents a smart apartment on Montague Terrace – a gorbeous brownstone that is still there if you want to visit – from Miss Logan, an estate agent played by the fabulous Ava Gardner who, as in Roddy MacDowall’s Tam Lynn, conveys depths only true movie stars can, she’s still magnetic and still deep… a far better actor than she gave herself credit for. She looks like she knows more than she lets on but she also looks like she’s selling real estate.
Alison explores her new home and meets another great star, Burgess Meredith who plays Charles Chazen a likeable but eccentric old man with a budgie on his shoulder and a welcoming smile. Then she comes across a strange couple of women in leotards, Gerde Engstrom (the ever unsettling Sylvia Miles) and her younger lover Sandra (Beverly D'Angelo) who whilst Gerde gets them drinks masturbates in front of Alison… Winner again using sex to unsettle.
Alison makes her excuses and leaves but is delighted when Charles calls her into a party to celebrate his cat’s birthday or something. The whole crowd seem friendly and not in the least odd… well somewhat. That night Alison has vivid dreams of the party and wakes to hear footsteps from the room above with her chandelier shaking with the force of someone pacing relentlessly up and down.
When she mentions all this to Miss Logan she’s told that
the house is empty save for her and the mysterious priest who sits alone
looking out of the top-floor window. She shows the model the other rooms and
they are indeed empty. Concerned at Alison’s growing obsession with the place,
Michael employs a PI, James Brenner (Hank Garrett) to investigate. That night
things take an alarming turn as unable to sleep, Alison goes upstairs to find
out what the noise is and armed with a knife, encounters her dead father and
other ghouls. She lashes out with a knife and flees into the street and collapses.
I saw my father. I stabbed him and he’s already dead… it makes me feel like I should take my life again!
Alison is distraught in hospital but I’m reminded of Harrison Ford’s comment to George Lucas – you can type this shit but you sure as hell can’t say it! – and some aspects are unintentionally jarring in the wrong way but Winner is playing this almost for laughs counterpointing the film’s sometimes repulsive visual shocks.
A body of a man is found the next day but it’s investigator Brenner, stabbed in the very places on the chest that Alison thought she had hit her father. This is getting stranger and Michael soon establishes that everyone of the people Alison has met is not only dead but in life were murderers.
The police are called and we have the pleasure of Eli Wallach as Detective Gatz accompanied by baby-faced Christopher Walken as Detective Rizzo who suspect more earthly motives even casting doubt on Michael. Another juxtaposition of “reliable” human weakness with the most unlikely of demonic appearances. Meanwhile Alison seeks spiritual counsel and encounters Monsignor Franchino in the local church who urges her to seek answers from God…
But, can the Lord, the police or Michael save Alison from
what is coming?
Dusty Verdict: There’s a lot packed into The Sentinel and it’s an entertaining if jumbled ride with the audience having to join a variety of dots from among the dead herrings. It has some truly unsettling moments and with a touch of Ken Russell Winner even uses deformed people from side-shows and elsewhere to play hoards of demons at one point, something which hits you in unpleasant ways on so many levels.
A one ulcer man in a two ulcer job…
There are some good lines of dialogue, such as Michael’s description of Detective Gatz and then the moments when he realises that Alison is only seeing the same latin passage in every book he shows her. It’s Milton, Paradise Lost of course and there’s a biblical ending that still leaves you shaken still.
Sometimes even Good is as terrifying as Evil.
