The Sentinel (1977) - Campy Horror Delight

A favorite. Very dumb but spooky too.

Someone turned this into a sitcom lmao.

There is an extended version of this movie that was broadcast on TV. I wish its was released on DVD. I remember seeing it the the theater in 1977. I also read the book which of course has a great more detail. I had the biggest crush on Christina Raines.

Are you a lesbian R3?

As horror films go, it's an interesting one. Had lots of good actors for a minor horror film: Chris Sarandon, Beverly D'Angelo, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, Jose Ferrer, Sylvia Miles, Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach, Christopher Walken, Jerr Orbach, Tom Berenger, Jeff Goldblum, Ava Gardner. That was some cast.

Did Gardner play the realtor in this? I saw this once, when it played on cable. Cristina Raines did a self destruct career-wise, right? Uncooperative, I read.

^I remember tuning in expecting Gardner to be playing the up-and-coming model.

Beverly certainly deserved a supporting Oscar for her bold lesbianic flirting scene.

Christina Raines is primarily known for playing the dying hippie girl in the tv movie "Sunshine." I don't know much about her except that she had affairs with Mark Harmon and Keith Carradine and her career never really took off, espite the prominent role in "Sunshine" and a role in the film "Nashville."

[quote]As horror films go, it's an interesting one. Had lots of good actors for a minor horror film: Chris Sarandon, Beverly D'Angelo, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, Jose Ferrer, Sylvia Miles, Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach, Christopher Walken, Jerr Orbach, Tom Berenger, Jeff Goldblum, Ava Gardner. That was some cast.

They were all slummin".

I still have nightmares over Sylvia and Beverly sittin' there nekkid with their knockers hangin' down.

None of those demons could afford to live in that building today. They couldn’t even afford Yonkers.

IMDB:

"Raines retired from acting in 1992 at the age of 40, to become a registered nurse, specialising in the care of renal dialysis patients."

OMG, good for her.

This is one of my favorite horror movies!

The ending is so fucking disturbing. You couldn't do it now. Many of the disfigurements displayed could be fixed now and it would be considered insensitive but, fuck, it was scary for me when I was a kid.

It was so exploitative of the deformed people the director rounded up from asylums and state homes.

The director, Michael Winner, insisted the crew and cast eat lunch with the deformed people he had scrounged up because, he insisted, "They're real people!"

Then he himself refused to do so because he decided they were too disgusting.

Beverly D’Angelo is a bitch

[quote]r6 Cristina Raines did a self destruct career-wise, right? Uncooperative, I read.

There’s a very long interview with Rains at the below blog site. She comes across as intelligent though not deeply artistic or anything.

According to her, she began to ease out of acting after she had a child.

[quote] During the filming of her "Highway to Heaven" episode, Raines came to an epiphany that eventually led her to quietly end her acting career after almost 20 years. [italic]"My daughter was about, I guess, six months old and I had her with me and I had my nanny there while we were shooting down at the Marine Corps base down in San Diego. And afterwards I said to myself 'I can't do this. I have to raise my own daughter. I don't want anybody else doing it.' Because, you know, there were long work hours, long days when you're working as an actress. And so that's when I kind of said, 'You know, I think I'm just gonna back off from that for awhile.' And then I backed off for a long time!”

[quote] Then he himself refused to do so because he decided they were too disgusting.

Where did you hear that?

r21, it was on a youtube video that was talking about this film.

Here it is, r21. The retrospective commentary here is by Edgar Wright, who directed "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz":

the last shot has the sentinel guarding the gates of hell looking across the Hudson to lower Manhattan and the films ends of a shot of the WTC buildings which form an 11.

It’s on Netflix and the print they used for the transfer looks great.

I am watching it again and I forgot how gorgeous Chris Sarandon is. I wonder if I saw a cut with some of his parts removed as I don’t remember him being in it much.