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SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Why has The Sentinel been reissued on DVD? Unless some kind of Tarantino-esque cult escaped my notice, it doesn't have a following, and as it's not even a lesser work by a major director, it lacks resale value to possible completists. No, the reason behind this re-release is simple: Universal hates us. So much so, in fact, that they have dangled an odious and slapdash chiller knowing that any catalogue spookshow is easy bait for the less cinema-savvy. In truth, the film features a contempt for human feeling and female dignity that are unparalleled in nothing less than the debased world of the 1970s devil flick. Watching it is like being felt up by a stranger on a bus while he whispers filthy things in your ear: the pleasure in the exchange is one-sided, inconsiderate, and destructive to the poor soul on the receiving end.

The woman in question is fashion model Alison Parker (Cristina Raines), whose repellent and lecherous father once drove her to attempt suicide. (A nauseating flashback features him gleefully snatching the cross from her neck when she walks in on him shtupping two bimbos.) Years later, she's looking for an apartment and finds one with a mysterious senile priest on the top floor, in addition to a bunch of wacko neighbours that includes animal-lover Burgess Meredith and dissipated lesbians Sylvia Miles and Beverly D'Angelo (the latter of whom starts masturbating after inviting poor Alison in). Thing is, Alison is the only one to whom these tenants appear, and nobody will believe her that they exist. Suffice it to say that a little digging by her fiancé (Chris Sarandon) uncovers strange Catholic goings-on that point towards Alison becoming a pawn in a bid to keep the lid on a portal to Hell.

This is one of those movies in which the female lead is repeatedly punished despite the fact that she's clearly the victim--moreover, because she's a victim. On the one hand, Alison is constantly molested by degenerates eager to destroy her self-image as an autonomous person; on the other, Alison's attempts to flee that horror result in her becoming a hostage to the Church and its similarly oppressive agenda. There's no way she can win, and the movie derives its ugly charge from watching the abuse of this poor sap by the two poles on the good/evil chart. Eventually you wonder which side the filmmakers are supposed to be endorsing: both are powerful and both are destructive, while the whole scenario seems tricked-up to degrade and abuse a hapless woman. It's hard to watch, impossible to enjoy.

Nobody gets away clean in The Sentinel: not the lead, not her co-stars, not the religious, not the liberal, not anyone prone to viewing life as something other than a battle between opposing bullies. Everyone is either a deserving victim or an enthusiastic oppressor for the greater glory of cheap thrills. It's a film that sees value in nothing and will do anything for its disgusting effects--to the shameful extent of casting people with birth defects as demons in a ridiculous living-dead finale. The only people who could derive entertainment from this travesty are masochists looking to get battered; the rest of us would do well to put the keepcase down and run as fast as we can.

Universal brings this hellspawn into the world again in an adequate but by no means top-notch presentation that achieves its singular goal of outmoding the fullscreen version from Goodtimes. The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen image is vivid but kind of soft, with acceptable saturation for the mostly brown-and-beige colour scheme. The Dolby 2.0 mono sound is at least sharp enough to give every awful line of dialogue a cutting clarity. The sole extra is The Sentinel's worn trailer.-Travis Hoover