Aspiring model Allison Parker finally moves into her dream apartment: a brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. But her perfect home quickly turns hellish. The building is filled with a cast of sinister tenants, including a reclusive blind priest, who seems to watch her day and night through an upstairs window. Eventually, Allison starts hearing strange noises from the empty apartment above hers. Before long, she uncovers the building’s demonic secret and is plunged into a nightmare of sinful misdeeds and boundless evil.
Horror Novel Book Review Blog: The Sentinel
I remember, ages ago when I watched The Sentinel on what I can only imagine to be an old VHS, it scared me. I don’t remember why as I can’t say that the movie was memorable other than the image of the elderly blind priest as he stared blankly outside a window of his Manhattan apartment building. This aspect was, without a doubt to me the most frightening and eerie thing about the movie from what I remember. That, and the film’s conclusion. Being that it has been years since I’ve seen the movie I thought I’d dive into the book to see if it will be more memorable than the film and if it would conjure frights long since faded away.
We follow Allison, a model, who moves into a brownstone apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhattan where she meets her peculiar neighbors and soon begins to catch on that things are aloof and not what they seem to be in the apartment building. On the top floor, a blind priest loomingly positions himself in front of the window daily, as if standing guard and watching those below, leaving Allison to ponder – Why does he stand by the window if he can’t see? What are the noises coming from the empty apartment upstairs? Why are her neighbors so strange? After a significant reveal occurs, we begin to ask our own questions not only about what is happening, but we begin to ask about the sanity of our protagonist, Allison.
The story of The Sentinel is reminiscent of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist. The mystery and feel of this novel fit into that 70s wave of occult, religious, and satanic-themed storyline which lends itself to fall in line with what one might expect with such a premise – fear of both the supernatural and of your fellow neighbor. But, The Sentinel, in my opinion, fell short of what Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist were able to capture, and that is character development. The characters, aside from our protagonist, Allison, were, for the most part, one-dimensional and served as crutches to help move the story and reach its inevitable conclusion for Allison. Her backstory is pivotal in understanding her motivations because of a past trauma that clearly affects her behavior in the present and makes us question early in the story if she will be a reliable narrator.
Konvitz tried to give more depth and background to Allison’s love interest, Michael, and it may have worked but that backstory only served to create a conflict with a pesky detective, Gatz, who had it out for him from a past case that he was involved in relating to Michael. He, Michael, is not portrayed in a positive light, in my opinion, as he comes off as insensitive, thoughtless, and misogynistic. While the back and forth with Michael and the detective added some tension to scenes it took away from the main story of what was happening with Allison in the building. Michael does wedge himself into her overall narrative but it seemed that Detective Gatz just kept butting in because of a random and off-the-cuff gut feeling that, in my opinion, there was no way he could have tied anything to Michael based on the current situation. But, because he had it out for him, he felt inclined to be a pest and force himself to harass Michael in order to remind him that he was still around and watching him closely. A side plot that became rather annoying.
The novel is a bit sluggish to get through and while I did enjoy The Sentinel, the journey was a bit arduous. I enjoyed the story and the premise of what was happening but the side story with Michael and the detective were rough to get through at times. It is a good read but may be a challenge to get through for the modern reader. The Sentinel is a refreshing take on the age-old battle between good versus evil, about losing and finding one’s faith again while also taking a look back in time and seeing where we, as a society, may have viewed sexual orientation and preferences in a roundabout sort of way. There are some scary scenes albeit slightly a bit over the top at times, and there is enough of a creepy factor to keep some up at night if you are not used to reading books in the horror genre. It is a book that I may, or may not, revisit for quite some time. I will, however, give the film of the same name a rewatch to see how it fairs compares to the book.