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In "The Sentinel", Cristina Raines plays Alison Parker, a model with a past. One day, as a teenager, she comes home and finds her father naked in bed with two women and they're all eating birthday cake. So, she runs into the bathroom and slits her wrists. (I'd probably do the same under those circumstances. What an image!?) So, she recovers and becomes a model - and seemingly has it all. A successful career. Some money to spend. And a boyfriend (Chris Sarandon) who takes care of her. And that's the problem - she doesn't want to be taken care of.
So, she moves out of the apartment they share telling him that she still loves him - but that she needs her space. (If he bought that, he doesn't deserve her - dumbass!) From there, she moves into an apartment in an old brown stone in New York. You'd think the creepy priest living on the top floor would scare her away - but instead she sticks around because it's cheap and furnished. And soon, a series of bizarre events start to rattle her sanity.
First, the fainting spells. Then, the odd group of people who seemingly share the apartment building including the man who throws a birthday party for his cat (Burgess Meredith) and the lesbian couple who's only purpose in life is apparently to fondle each other (their words, not mine). On a side note, Beverly D'Angelo's (who plays one of the lesbians) has a odd/freaky masturbation scene here. After that, there's footsteps in the apartment upstairs, despite the fact that nobody lives there. You'd think she'd take the time to run as fast as she can away from this apartment - but it's a movie so of course, she stays.
So, after hearing the footsteps, she decides to head upstairs to investigate. And she sees her dead father. So, she grabs a knife slices him up a little. So naturally everyone thinks she's insane - until a dead body shows up. And that dead body belongs to an investigator hired by her boyfriend to look into the strange goings on at the apartment building. After this, her boyfriend decides to do some investigating of his own - and the story begins to unfold. (I won't give it away here because you're better off seeing the movie without knowing.)
The only extra included on this DVD is the movie's original theatrical trailer. If you're going to see this movie, avoid watching the trailer first. I watched the movie first and when watching the trailer foud that it gave away too much of the plot. Again, for the movie to succeed, you're better off without knowing.
Originally released in 1977, "The Sentinel" came out at a time when filmmakers actually spent time developing character and story. (If this movie were remade nowadays, they'd spend five minutes on character development before getting to the horror and kinky imagery.) It was a nice change of pace. I liken it to The Exorcist in that it spent a lot of building up before getting to the scary shit. However, unlike Exorcist, when it did get there it unfortunately didn't have that big an impact, which is really too bad.
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