Today I'll be telling you all about 1977's The Sentinel. This film was Universal's answer to The Exorcist and is actually not half bad although not nearly as popular. This film has an absurdly star studded cast, featuring many old Hollywood legends who were on their way out such as Ava Gardner and Burgess Meredith, as well as a few Hollywood hopefuls before they made it big like Beverly D'Angelo, Christopher Walken, and Jeff Goldblum.
A beautiful and very dated model named Alison and her lawyer boyfriend Michael are looking for apartments when the movie opens. He wants the two of them to live together in Manhattan, but she's looking for a cheaper place of her own. When Alison finds a gorgeous furnished apartment right on the promenade in Brooklyn Heights that's in her price range she wonders what the catch could be but decides to go for it.
Just before Alison moves in her father dies and she's forced to fly home for the funeral. At the last minute she decides not to go on to the services and stays back at the house she grew up in where she has flashbacks to when she tried to kill herself. She accidentally walks in on her father with two full figured call girls giggling and eating cake. Before she can turn to leave her elderly father springs from the bed and knocks over an empty birdcage, which sends her into hysterics and she runs to the bathroom to slit her wrists.
Back home Alison's about to move into her new digs when she notices a creepy figure staring at her from a top floor window. The realtor tells her he's a blind priest who always just sits facing the manhattan skyline. As soon as she's moved in strange things start happening to poor Alison. Animals start going bonkers at photo shoots, she starts having strange headaches and fainting spells, and she can't perform basic tasks on the job. She soon meets some of the neighbors in the building who include an eccentric old man who introduces himself as Charlie with a bird named Mortimer on one shoulder and a cat named Jezebel on the other. Next she meets her downstairs neighbors, a kooky pair of European lesbians. One of them, played by a very young Beverly D'Angelo, declines to speak but instead she attempts to masturbate through her leotard when the other goes to answer the phone.
The next day Alison is invited up to Charlie's apartment for a birthday party for his cat Jezebel where she meets all the other tenants in the building, all accept for the blind priest on the top floor. Later than night she has nightmares and wakes to find the chandelier over her bed swinging violently back and forth, and the sound of loud footsteps and metal scraping on the floor above her. When she contact the realtor about her problem she's informed that other than herself and the priest that no one has lived in the building for years. When Alison insists that other people are living there, the realtor offers to investigate the possibility of squatters in the building, but they find all the apartments totally empty and covered in cobwebs. When Alison insists on meeting the priest, they go up and knock but no one answers. The realtor says that he probably can't hear them but assures Alison that he's properly cared for since the New York Catholic Diocesan Society owns the building.
The next night she wakes to the same noises and swinging chandeliers so she takes a knife and a flashlight and goes to investigate. On her way she finds Jezebel the cat happily munching on poor Mortimer the bird in the hallway. She scares him off and keeps on looking. She enters the apartment above her and sees a figure rush off into another room. When she pursues it's her dead father who jumps out at her and in the room with him are the two call girls from years before. She rushes out of the room and stumbles into a table full of razorblades. She gets up and tries to rush off but her zombie father catches up to her and she's forced to stab at him to escape. He is apparently made of butter and with a few gentle scrapes of the knife he's cut to pieces on the floor. She rushes out into the street where she's immediately met by a dozen or so neighbors from other buildings who must have been patiently waiting by their doors for someone to pass by despite the late hour. They find our Alison covered in blood in her nightgown screaming that she killed her father.
When the police get involved it comes out that Michael's first wife killed herself and that the police suspected foul play on Michael's part. An officer accuses him of foul play this time around too. When Alison brings up the names of some of the other neighbors in the building it turns out that they're famous murderers who have been executed years before. When the body of a crooked private eye turns up dead a few blocks away the police concoct a theory that Michael had this man kill his first wife and the tried to use him again to scare poor Alison but it backfired.
When Alison takes the investigation into her own hands she uncovers some strange stuff that peaks Michael's interest too. He visits the Diocesan society himself and figures out that something really fishy is going on. He employs a shady pal of his to help him break into the Diocesan building after hours and digs up a file on the priest who lives in the building above Alison. He discovers that the priest used to go by another name and lived a normal life until he tried to commit suicide. After than he changed his name and became a priest. Upon further inspection he finds that he assumed the life of a priest the same day that another priest died. That priest had also lived a civilian life, tried to kill himself, and became a priest. Then he finds that the pattern continues back, than each civilian failed suicide becomes a priest (or nun) the day that the priest (or nun) before him (or her) dies. Then at the end of the file he finds his lady Alison with a history of attempted suicide and the date the she becomes Sister Theresa and the day that her holy neighbor dies is set for the following day.
He rushes home to make sure someone watches over her for the day, and heads off to confront the priest on the top floor. Alison heads to a party with a friend of hers, but has a headache and goes to lay down. When no one's watching she heads back to the house herself. Upstairs Michael finds out from the priest that the house is the entrance to Hell!!! Dun Dun Dun...
When he can't get anymore information from him, Michael flies into a rage and tries to kill the priest. Another figure comes from behind but we jump downstairs when Alison enters the house. She runs to her apartment and hides in a closet when she hears someone enter. It turns out to be Michael and he explains that the priests are kept in the house to guard the entrance to Hell and watch over it. He goes on to say that the people she'd met in the house were from Hell and were trying to get her to kill herself before it was her turn to watch over the gate. He then tells her that he was killed upstairs by one of the Diocese when he tried to kill the priest. He went to hell but was brought back to make sure she killed herself too. When she tries to escape she bumps into Charlie in the hall, who summons all the hellacious house guests along with a great number of deformed people, who I suppose we're to believe are evil too. Alison runs up to the priests room and they all follow her. Just as they've convinced her to end her life the priest and the Diocese enter the room and cast out all the demons. She picks up the cross and sits in the chair and that seems to be that.
Next the house is torn down and they begin to rent it out. When a couple looking at the building ask about the neighbors the realtor tells them that the woman next to them will be no trouble, she's a nun and keeps to herself...
Decent movie. A bit dated. I'm sure that it wasn't all that funny to read about, but I'm on a role and can't help but write about every horror I watch now...
