The Sentinel (1977)

Genre: Supernatural

Source: Netflix Instant Que

Grade: B

     Other than it being an obvious attempt by Universal to cash off the success of Warner Bros extremely successful supernatural/possession horror film The Exorcist. This movie is rather good and original. With an incredible cast boosting both veteran actors such as John Carradine, Eli Wallach, and Burgess Merideth. As well as actors who were new faces at the time but are now huge names such as Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, and Chris Sarandon (who is forever know to me as Prince Humperdink,his character from The Princess Bride in case you didn't catch that).

        The story for The Sentinel was in my opinion an interesting story that was delivered well on screen but I feel it had the potential of being better. For instance the basic story is about a fashion model who moves into a apartment owned by the church  that also happens to be the gateway to hell, and also happens to be in need of a new sentinel to guard the gateway so demons cant escape, luckily shes the perfect candidate. The rest you'll just have to watch for yourself.
          For the most part I felt the story was pretty well done on screen, some great eerie scenes in the apartment and a very cool ending if you ask me. Now the only problems I had with the movie was there was just to much focus on the main girls drama between her and her boyfriend and not enough on the horror aspect. I also felt there were a couple things in the movie that were not nearly expanded on enough. Also they didn't give enough screen time for John Carradines character despite him being the sentinel.

         Anyways the biggest thing I think this movies got going to its name is its superb cast. Wow, lets see first off you have the awesome as always John Carradine, Next you've got Burgess Meredith in a really well suited role for him, and even Eli Wallach is in it playing a bold detective whose partner  is a very young Christopher Walken who hardly says a word.Then Jeff Goldblum gets a couple of good scenes. Heck even Tom Beranger and Richard Dreyfuss show up for some very small roles, though Dreyfuss is so small if you blink you'll miss it. A young mustached Chris Sarandon plays the main characters boyfriend and he does a pretty well job at it to, though its nothing compared to his performances in The Princess Bride and Fright Night.

       Altogether though The Sentinel is a decent supernatural horror film. Now i`m not crazy about remakes but if there was any movie that had potential of being remade and possibly turning out really good I think this one would be one of them. I mean think about it all you'd have to do is touch up the script focus more on the horror then drama, add more suspense, and cast Christopher Lee in John Carradines role and you might as well bring back a bunch of the original cast for cameos or even main roles. I honestly believe it could turn out really good.