Waste of time

hyped garbage

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is a real unheralded minor gem. It has a similar tone and atmosphere to Carnival of Souls (1962) yet is much less well known than that cult classic. Both films stories are based around carnivals, in Carnival of Souls it was an abandoned one whereas Night Tide is set in an off-season seaside resort. The melancholic, lonely ambiance given off by this setting is one of the chief strengths of the film. A sailor falls in love with a carnival girl who believes herself to be a mermaid, an underwater race who kill by the full moon. She says she has been responsible for the deaths of her previous two lovers.In keeping with the haunting and dreamy atmosphere, the mermaid is portrayed as a doomed creature who takes no joy in her situation. The film displays the influence of the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur films of the 40's and 50's in the way that it presents its chilling story in a highly subtle, sophisticated manner. I was especially brought to mind of Cat People (1942) with is cursed central female character. It also shares another detail from that film, with its mysterious woman in the periphery of events who interacts occasionally and appears to also be one of the mythical race. This latter aspect is very well integrated into the story and adds a nice bit of ambiguity to events. The haunting jazz score also perfectly captures the right ambiance of the events. Lastly, there is Dennis Hopper who has one of his early starring roles here, unusually he plays a gentle soul and he does it very convincingly; although, in fairness, the cast in general all put in fine performances. This low budget flick is one that remains very emotive and interesting. It takes a less obvious approach to its material and this pays off with a haunting, tragic tale that makes quite an impact.

As another reviewer stated, one of the great things here is the locations, the apartments, merry-go-round, club, pier; the film would not be the same if filmed elsewhere. The fortune teller, merry-go- round operator and mermaid girl and her ex-seafaring surrogate father are out-of-the-mainstream people who make the off- beatness of the film. Hopper himself seems an unusual character for a young U.S. Navy guy--'cause he's poking around in this rather strange environnment and is open to meeting these unusual people. He wanders into a basement jazz club at the beginning (by himself, not with a navy buddy) sees the intriuging mermaid girl and after a persisitent effort befriends her and she agrees to meet him next day--at her apartment over the merry-go-round place where she makes him breakfast! (fresh mackrel). Hopper is fantastic. Soft-spoken, bright, very natural, kind of innocent yet mature. He is someone who is open to new experiences. He speaks his mind in a very human way, and his responses to whatever is happening are all intelligent. He comes off as very mellow, friendly and likable. His girlfriend is good-looking, with nice eyes, originally from an island in Greece, she's interesting and very natural in her speech as well. Hearing the dialog between them is very sweet.I love her dancing in the nighttime beach party scene. In parts there is an ominous air of mystery which is important to the overall mood (Having to do with the "Sea People" legend and the possible murders of the mermaid girl's previous two boyfriends). The girl is almost like a supernatural being. I'd say that it's a nice love story,rather than it being about loneliness as other reviewers say. Yes, Night Tide is a gem that I was glad to have found.

Well for whatever reason the first time I saw this movie I was extremely impressed with it, but this time around it seemed quite a bit rough around the edges. Still, I have to give this movie a lot of credit for originality in bringing a sort of fantasy sensibility into a "noir" kind of story. Also I think in some of the moments here when Dennis Hopper hits his stride, we're seeing basically "A Star is Born" situation going on and that makes the film precious in a whole other way.The plot owes quite a lot to Jacques Tourneur's "The Cat People" -- this is the aquatic version of that film. There's even a mysterious woman who confronts the heroine in a restaurant in a scene lifted from Tourneur's film directly. What I enjoyed here that wasn't in Tourneur's film is the seedy carnival atmosphere. But in so many areas, particularly Luana Anders performance as the "good girl", the film fails to take advantage of interesting possibilities and instead presents clichés as if they were fully formed ideas.The nightmare sequences are awkward but intriguing, the mood and tone of the film is pleasingly dark and empty. This film may have in turn influenced other films, particularly Herk Harvey's famous "Carnival of Souls" which features a similar scene underneath an amusement boardwalk and a similar quiet mood.

Don't get me wrong... I don't think this is a great achievement in film making.I stumbled across this movie on late night TV, back in the early days of UHF, when, at 13 or 14, it was very exciting to me to have new channels that were so low budget that they showed things that, in the light of mainstream, 3 channel, VHF programming, seemed very much like they were being beamed in from another galaxy.Through the lens of adolescent angst that I saw it through, this is a movie about unbearable loneliness, brilliantly captured by Dennis Hopper, whose only way out of his loneliness is through a beautiful woman from another world that he can't fully understand.Like Kabuki theater on Darvon, he moves through the shadows of this overfiltered dreamworld of seaside 1960. The real monster is loneliness, and unlike most horror movies, the monster wins this one.The setting, the off season seaside resort (and it could have been any, not just Venice Beach) was perfect, being there by oneself is possibly the loneliest experience one could have, hinting at a livelier, fun=filled world that, because of time, is unattainable.It represents to me, maybe the first "indie" film I saw and recognized as one, "indie" in the original sense of a movie that was not made to be a box office hit, but because someone HAD to make a movie about something they felt strongly about, or had an artistic vision that had to be shared. Many of the earlier examples of these movies found their way onto UHF, because they were cheap to rent. But they got me hooked, and as soon as I could drive, sought out the art theaters in nearby towns that showed what was then called "underground" cinema, Kenneth Anger, John Waters (pre-flamingoes) I am Curious (Yellow and Blue.) These films are not as enchanting to me now, but then, none of them ever lived up to Night Tide for me.For sentimental reasons, this has always been, and will always be, one of my very favorite movies.