Review: Night Tide

Blu-ray: Night Tide (1961)

Dennis Hopper falls in love with a mermaid.

The above sentence tells all you need to know if you\’ll have any interest in watching Night Tide, but quite honestly, who wouldn\’t want to watch it after that brief synopsis!?

Johnny Drake (a young Dennis Hopper) is a sailor on shore leave who visits a seaside town, and while enjoying a beer in a local bar meets Mora (Linda Lawson) who works at the local funfair.

Meeting up for breakfast the next morning, Mora tells Johnny that she is one of the attractions at the fair and poses as a mermaid, charging people 25c a time to see her lying in a fake water tank with a mermaids tail attached to her.

Little does Johnny know that Mora\’s obsession with mermaids runs deep, and that she believes she really is one. 

Unperturbed by the thought of some aquatic love, Johnny is warned off by various townspeople, including Captain Samuel Murdock (Gavin Muir); an old seadog who discovered Mora on a distant island and brought her to America.

Johnny then learns that Mora has had 2 previous boyfriends, and both were found drowned in mysterious circumstances.

Will Johhny\’s relationship with Mora go swimmingly, or will it sink without trace? (sorry, couldn\’t resist those puns).

Written and directed by Curtis Harrington, Night Tide doesn\’t outstay it\’s lean 86 minute running time, and seeing a young Dennis Hopper play a shy and retiring sailor is worth every penny for that alone.

Its low budget is obvious by its minimal locations and onscreen production, but this charming and quirky tale keeps your interest throughout, never really knowing what is real and what is imagined, and creating a very similar atmosphere to Carnival of Souls which was released a year later.

Exclusive to this two-disc set is a bonus Blu-ray devoted to Harrington’s short films, encompassing his seven decades as a filmmaker and featuring experimental works, documentaries, and the two adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher that bookended his career.

Yet another superb release from Powerhouse Films.

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION 2x BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:

DISC ONE: NIGHT TIDE

• New 4K restoration
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentary with writer-director Curtis Harrington and actor Dennis Hopper (1998)
• Audio commentary with writer and film programmer Tony Rayns (2020)
• Harrington on Harrington (2018, 25 mins): wide-ranging archival interview with the filmmaker
• Sinister Image: Curtis Harrington (1987, 57 mins): two episodes from David Del Valle’s series devoted to cult cinematic figures in conversation, featuring a career-spanning interview with the director
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image gallery: publicity and promotional material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

DISC TWO: DREAM LOGIC: THE SHORT FILMS OF CURTIS HARRINGTON (LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE DISC)

• High Definition remasters
• Original mono audio
• Eight short films spanning Harrington’s seven decades as a filmmaker, including experimental works, documentaries and his career-bookending Edgar Allan Poe adaptations: The Fall of the House of Usher (1942, 10 mins); Fragment of Seeking (1946, 14 mins); Picnic (1948, 23 mins); On the Edge (1949, 6 mins); The Assignation (1953, 8 mins); The Wormwood Star (1956, 10 mins); The Four Elements (1966, 13 mins); Usher (2002, 37 mins)
• Image gallery: production photography and a rare selection from Harrington’s personal collection
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

• Limited edition exclusive 80-page book featuring new writing on Night Tide by Paul Duane, Curtis Harrington on Night Tide and the short films, archival articles by Harrington on horror cinema, experimental films and the making of Picnic, an overview of critical responses, Peter Conheim on the restoration of Night Tide, and film credits
• Limited edition exclusive set of five facsimile lobby cards
• UK premieres on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 3,000 copies

Night Tide is released on 27th January 2020.

Review by Dave from discs kindly supplied by Powerhouse Films.

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