This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Yes the film is (as one reviewer called it) a moody piece... artfully directed and beautifully written and acted out by the cast. It is what I would call a 'quiet' thriller. By 'quiet' I mean there is not shooting, chasing, nor are there bloody scenes - just an effectively well written, well acted, well directed and well filmed movie.Johnny Drake (Dennis Hopper) is a young sailor who meets the beautiful Mora (Linda Lawson). He falls in love with her but soon worries that she might be a real life mermaid - and not just her job as a sideshow mermaid - but a real mermaid.The movie has it's share of thrilling moments - intense moments. This film is worth watching if you enjoy thrillers, mysteries, odd-films, artfully styled films and even mermaids.8.5/10

No need to repeat the plot or dwell on consensus points. A few remarks about the movie's significance might be helpful, however. Harrington's quirky little film was part of a larger independent effort in the early 1960's to break away from studio domination and commercial conformity. The movement came along in the wake of John Cassavetes' groundbreaking Shadows (1960), and also at a time when European films from Fellini, Bergman and the French New Wave, et al, were expanding audience perceptions. Shadows proved that audiences were ready for a more daring product than what Hollywood of the 50's was producing. Perhaps more importantly, Shadows showed that a quality feature-length film could be done on a small budget ($40,000), with a non-union crew, get commercially distributed, and be reviewed in major publications (Night Tide, I recall, managed a good review in mainstream Newsweek). One or more of these factors had long prevented emergence of an independent film movement outside studio bounds. But by the early 60's, times had changed. Night Tide remains an oddity, sort of a blending of Shadows and Roger Corman with the ghost of Val Lewton hovering in the background. The ending is unfortunate, something of a loss of nerve given Harrington's overall imaginative approach. What impressed me then, and still does, is the director's visual style. Most every frame amounts to a well-composed visual treat, even when taking in the flat side of Santa Monica's ocean front. It's a measured, near- lyrical style, well suited at capturing the poetical side of horror a la Lewton—a dimension sorely missing from today's bloodfests. Anyway, the movie shows considerable promise; I'm just sorry Harrington slipped into obscurity, never developing into the career I think his talent deserved. Meanwhile, the movie furnishes a look-see into what was then a fresh movement in film-making.

I thought this would be another of those dull, pointless things that are part of video collections. I was pleasantly surprised by several things. First of all is Dennis Hopper who was pretty photogenic. He plays a believable young sailor who finds himself in the middle of a weird setting, falling in love with a very attractive, mysterious young woman who apparently has blood on her hands. The characters are interesting and it is all pretty well acted. Hopper underplays his character and it works pretty well. He's not emoting but that's fine. The young woman tries so hard to get acceptance but has no awareness of who she actually is. All in all, the mystery is well handled and when all is said and done, things are pretty satisfying. There's even another mystery to chomp on.

Curtis Harrington's "Night Tide" probably didn't seem especially engaging on paper: it's a gentle, tragic love story with some slightly macabre overtones. But it clicks because of the utterly authentic locations (I was amazed to discover that Venice Beach, which looked so battered and defeated in Matt Cimber's "The Witch Who Came from the Sea", was in precisely the same condition more than a decade earlier!), Vilis Lapenieks' tasty cinematography, and David Raksin's jazzy, melancholic score. Dennis Hopper is okay, but I think he plays the young sailor as more of a noodlehead than was necessary. On the other hand, Linda Lawson is terrific as the beautiful, distant, otherworldly sideshow performer to whom Hopper is attracted, and Gavin Muir does a good job as Lawson's eccentric adoptive father. Comparisons to "Carnival of Souls" are inevitable because of the amusement pier backdrop, I suppose, but "Night Tide" is not a horror film. It would make a nice double feature with the aforementioned "The Witch Who Came from the Sea".