Night Tide (1961 film)

Dream sequence from Night Tide (1961 film)...

Night Tide, AKA Girl from Beneath the Sea, Death from Beneath the Sea, The Night of Terror (1961)

Summary

"A temptress from the sea... loving... killing... was she Human? Lovers caught in a dark tide of sinister TERROR!" A sailor on shore leave at a sea-side town falls in love with a mysterious dark-haired woman who plays a mermaid in the local carnival, and soon begins to believe she might actually be a real sea monster which kills when the moon is full....

Details

• Release Date: 1961
• Country/Language: US, English
• Genres/Technical: Thriller, Fantasy, Romance, black-and-white
• Runtime: 1 hr 26 min
• Starring: Dennis Hopper, Linda Lawson, Gavin Muir
• Director: Curtis Harrington
• Writer: Curtis Harrington
• Producer/Production Co: Phoenix Films
• View Trailer: (link)
• View Film: (link)
• IMDb: (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: (not rated) (perhaps equivalent to modern PG for mild Violence and Adult Content)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)

I've never seen this film, but at a distance it looks a bit like Val Lewton's Cat People (1942 franchise), with tentacles.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• Review at Breakfast in the Ruins (link) - "If one thing denies ‘Night Tide’ it’s richly deserved ‘cult classic’ status though, it is probably the ending. After the slow-burning dream-feel of the rest of the picture, the conclusion seems perfunctory and stupid on first viewing, giving every indication of a crass, producer-enforced happy ending that fails to even honour the basic Weird Tales convention that demands a naive protagonist be darkly changed by his or her uncanny experience."
• Review at Orphaned Entertainment (link)
• Review by Graeme Clark at The Spinning Image (link) - "While the solution to what is really going on is perfectly reasonable, but an anticlimax, Harrington wisely lets a few enigmas remain..."
• Review by Roderick Heath at This Island Rod (link) - " In many regards it’s barely a horror movie at all, but more of a portrait in eerie disquiet and forlorn romanticism, but Harrington constructs that mood with a deft hand..."
• Review by Mitch Lovell at The Video Vacuum (3 Stars) (link) - "Being someone who grew up in an ocean resort, I have to say that Harrington captured the atmosphere in Night Tide perfectly. ...there’s ... enough to love about this movie to make it recommended."
• Review by C. H. Newell at Father, Son, Holy Gore (4 stars) (link) - "Night Tide, at its heart, is a tale of what it is to love, in all its glory and its terror, neither mutually exclusive from the other. And this honesty makes Harrington’s feature a near masterpiece in storytelling."
• Review by Dennis Schwartz at Ozus world Movie Reivews (A-) (link) - "It borrows its title from Poe and its moody filming style from Kenneth Anger and has the dreamy look of a Val Lewton horror pic. "

Synopsis

 Spoiler Section (Highlight to Read)

A sailor on shore leave at a sea-side town becomes infatuated with a mysterious dark-haired woman who plays a mermaid in the local carnival, and soon begins to believe she might actually be a real sea monster which kills when the moon is full....

Notes

Associated Mythos Elements

• TO DO
• race: Deep One