The back cover of the blu-ray for 1961’s Night Tide puts this indie horror film in such storied company as Night of the Living Dead and Carnival of Souls. Both of those films have been inducted into the Criterion Collection. This one hasn’t, and I don’t believe it has any chance of doing so. Maybe the future will prove me wrong, and inclusion in the Collection does not necessarily mean a film is brilliant, but I think its exclusion correctly suggests this is an inferior work.
I can understand the comparison to Carnival, at least, in that there is a similar vibe here—a curious feeling of absence and loss. But whereas that other film had mystery and intrigue, the only thing Tide has over it is this one has an actual carnival in it, something mysteriously absent from the other film (the title of Carnival of Souls refers to the ghosts waltzing at the abandoned amusement park, I know).
The mystery here is supposed to be where the woman Dennis Hopper obsesses over (Linda Lawson) is a mermaid. He is told point blank by at least one character she is one. She also performs as one at a boardwalk attraction, where we see her apparently able to stay submerged under water without need of a breathing apparatus. So, the viewer will automatically assume she is a siren. And yet, I suspect the filmmakers expected us to wonder the entire time whether or not she is one. Hopper, inexplicable, waffles back and forth in his assessment.
He had been told of her condition by Gavin Muir, the barker for the attraction and the man who supposedly discovered her when he was a sea captain in her majesty’s navy. We had already learned from another character how Lawson’s previous two boyfriends had drowned under unknown circumstances. So, we already are thinking Hopper should be careful around her and maybe not accept any invitations to go swimming. And yet, that’s exactly what she does, and he agrees to, even after Muir warned him to be especially wary around the impending full moon. What, is she a mermaid and a werewolf (Weremaid? Merwolf?)
The true nature of what is happening is preposterous, and is revealed in a long monologue at the end which is batshit crazy while somehow also feeling as unnecessary as the similar psychological exposition dump at the end of Psycho. In fact, the explanation is so daft that I chose to disregard it.
I don’t believe I have seen anything before with Lawson in the cast, and she is well-used here as somebody who might be a siren. She has an air of mystery about her, and the vagueness of the dialog given her adds to the intrigue. There is much said about the ocean and how much she loves it. “I collect things from the ocean.” How I wish she had followed that up with, “…mostly sailors.” Or how about, “I feel the seawater in my veins”? I wonder if there are different types of that, like blood types.
Another woman interested in Hopper is Luana Anders, as the chipper operator of an arcade on the pier. She gives him one of the most bizarre come-ons I’ve heard in a film: “Maybe you could come over sometime and ride my merry-go-round?” Weird—is that what she calls her vajayjay?
But the weirdest aspect of the film is the unfortunate music throughout. It is almost like cues were taken from a musical library at random. The soundtrack matches the tone of a scene at any given time only by accident. Another curious aspect of the music is in the opening credits, where somebody is credited for “bongos”. That’s never a good sign, which this soundtrack only proves.
Now it’s time for another of my dump of random musings I couldn’t work in elsewhere. There’s a psychic working the pier who comes into Anders’s establishment to get her usual cup of tea, because she reads the tea leaves. But I wonder how she does that when we see that beverage was made using a tea bag. Then there’s the weird bit where Muir shows Hopper a preserved human hand he has in a jar on a shelf, claiming it was a gift from the sultan of Marrakesh. I really don’t want to know what Muir does with that. Lastly, there’s an odd moment where Lawson has captured a seagull off camera. We don’t see her do that, but we do see her petting the bird afterwards. I was wondering how they did that, as I have never heard of tame seagulls, and I doubt they normally like being held by people.
I had moderate expectations for Night Tide, but I didn’t find it particularly captivating. Aside from being low-budget and having some decent black-and-white photography, it is not on par with Carnival of Souls. Even so, it has a tinge of intrigue to it, though just not enough to make me want to revisit it soon. But the biggest mystery of all is Hopper’s sailor, who seems to be on interminable shore leave. At the end of the film, he is being taken away by MPs. Maybe he had actually gone AWOL.
Dir: Curtis Harrington
Starring Dennis Hopper, Linda Lawson
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray