Night Tide

(1961) ***1/2

Johnny (impossibly young Dennis Hopper) is a sailor on shore leave looking for a good time. Wandering up and down boardwalks along the California coastline he meets Mora and is immediately infatuated. Mora works in a local carnival as a mermaid in a “freaks” attraction. She later informs Johnny that retired sailor Captain Murdoch, who brought her up and now runs the mermaid attraction, found her on a Greek island as a little girl. Johnny asks her out and they begin a torrid romance, although Mora always seems a bit distant. Things are not as they seem, however, and Johnny begins to suspect that Mora is indeed a mermaid who must murder during each lunar cycle. A woman in a local bar informs Johnny that Mora’s previous two boyfriends were murdered and Mora appears to have a strange fixation with the sea. Given that it is almost time for another full moon, what is Johnny to do?

Dennis Hopper is so freakin' young!

Night Tide is a terrific discovery and reminded me of the Val Lewton films I reviewed last year (Cat People, Ghost Ship, etc). Less a horror film and more an unsettling mystery, Night Tide is drenched in atmosphere and enigma. While director Curtis Harrington answers some of the bigger questions, he wisely leaves some mysteries unanswered. For example, who is that strange women who speaks to Mora in another language? Johnny attmpts to pursue her at one point but he (and we) never learn her purpose. Moody and psychological, Night Tide is my first great find of Horrorthon 2007.


Johnny tries to follow this mysterious women but never learns her connection to Mora.