The Sentinel (1977)

 Many of my IMDb Horror Message Board and User Comments peers really hold up Michael Winner's The Sentinel (1977) highly, but I just never really took to it. I revisited the film before it was set to leave Tubi in seven days this afternoon after work and, once again, this just didn't really land for me. But, damn, this cast is just incredible

The cast list:

• Chris Sarandon as a lawyer looking into why his lover is physically ill and talking about tenants in her Brooklyn Brownstone that are dead killers.
• John Carradine as the white-eyed, blind "Sentinel" priest assigned to "stand watch" and "keep the devils at bay". He is in Apartment 5A, looking out the window, holding on to a particular gold crucifix
• Eli Wallach is a lead detective with partner Christopher Walken (who has this young face and swagger. He says very little but has that recognizable smirk), both pretty sure Sarandon was responsible for his wife's "suicide". 
• Martin Balsam as an authority in various languages, including Latin written by Sarandon's model girlfriend from a book with words he read in English
• José Ferrer and Arthur Kennedy are priests prepared to choose another Sentinel as Carradine "ages out"
• Ava Gardner as a real estate office agent who shows the lead actress (a model of commercials and magazines, played by Christina Raines)
• Sylvia Miles (the "clairvoyant" in Tobe Hooper's "The Funhouse") and debuting Beverly D'Angelo (who actually rubs one out right in the presence of Raines!) as "ballerina lesbian lovers in leotards"
• Jerry Orbach ("Law & Order" / "Dirty Dancing") as a director for a wine commercial not happy with Raines' blown takes
• Jeff Goldblum (dubbed for some reason) as a fashion photographer not particularly happy with two big dogs who rush from the hands of Raines during a shoot
• Nana Visitor ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") and a svelte and studly young Tom Berenger as a married couple arriving at a grand opening hotel renovated from the Brooklyn Brownstone
• William Hickey (who actually doesn't look as he usually did: eternally elderly) as a safecracker Sarandon hires to help investigate files on the dead folks Raines talked to in her Brooklyn Brownstone
• Robert Gerringer (the doctor murdered by Barnabas Collins on "Dark Shadows") is a cop often at odds with Wallach over failed but persistent investigations on Sarandon
• Burgess Meredith as a clever, flamboyant, chatty "Devil". He's the one who tries to convince Raines to kill herself
• Deborah Raffin (one of many tragic romantic love interests doomed in a Charles Bronson film; in her case, "Death Wish III") as Raines fellow model pal, unable to help her friend escape her fate as a "guardian" opposed to reincarnated devils once murderers when alive.

This is just a checklist of (at that time) past, present, and future stars, Universal Studios wanting a star-studded lineup. I read quite a bit on how director Michael Winner was just a royal pain, leaving plenty involved in the production of the film frustrated, including the writer of the story and lead actress. I believe I read somewhere Chris Sarandon almost swore off "Fright Night" because of Winner in this horror film.

The whole good vs evil horror show picking off the classics of the Devil and priests combating the forces of darkness just didn't work for me, personally, and felt derivative. The exploitation of those with various deformities, portraying them as a grotesque gallery of freaks to scare and repulse Raines (and the viewer) just left me personally uneasy...the humanizing Browning did with "Freaks" is undermined by how those same human beings similar in conditions are used as "ugly devils meant to frighten". It is no surprise Winner's cast of "normies" didn't want to eat with them...nothing had changed in 45 years.

For what it's worth, I did really like Raines in the lead. She is just full of personality, with that terrific smile, accessible and approachable presence, and attractiveness that pops on camera (as the cliche goes: the camera does love her...even when she's deteriorating). And seeing all these faces of actors/actresses from so many types of entertainment would be kismet if the film actually deserved them. Carradine was creepy, and Raffin is also strikingly beautiful as Raines' concerned best friend. Kennedy as the priest dedicated to making sure Raines "takes the reins" from Carradine is mysterious and enigmatic enough, I guess. The film really has to squeeze all these names into it, while Winner does his best to see that the editing keeps the pace going. Meredith, to me, (and no surprise) steals the film with every scene he's in.

I will say the scenes with the icky father and Raines made my skin crawl. It seems anywhere the father is--even when a walking, violent corpse -- his gross lovers are there as well. Raines had attempted suicide twice, once because she found her father in the middle of a threesome, the other because of the death of Sarandon's wife to suicide.

 2/5