Comments | cult_movie: Night Tide (1961)

dfordoom in cult_movie

Night Tide (1961)

Aug 01, 2009 01:37

Night Tide is an odd but entrancing 1961 film written and directed by Curtis Harrington, and providing Dennis Hopper with his first starring role. It’s almost impossible to assign this movie to a particular genre although it clearly owes a great deal to Val Lewton’s horror movies made for RKO in the 40s.

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art house

Comments 5

zinnea July 31 2009, 15:44:24 UTC

Oh, I have to disagree. Night Tide is intriguing and engaging all the way up to the end and that's where it falls down. I really didn't like the ending at all.

dfordoom July 31 2009, 16:06:20 UTC

It's one of those movies that was always going to be tricky to end. A touch more ambiguity might have improved it. The article he finds in the newspaper from 20 years earlier was something that perhaps should have been developed a bit more.

zinnea July 31 2009, 17:27:49 UTC

I think you're right--ambiguity would have helped.

Despite my dissatisfaction with the ending, I highly recommend this movie, anyway; I found it very intriguing and the photography is amazing. (I'm very familiar with the areas where it was shot, so an added bonus for me was seeing what those areas looked like back before I was born.) I like that the characters are all sort of oddballs in their own ways but oddballs in a human way with actual personalities, not just a collection of tics from a checklist of "quirky characters 101". I particularly liked Mora and also Ellen.

caution - spoilers in this comment dfordoom July 31 2009, 18:38:22 UTC

Spoilers coming up in this comment -

Perhaps he tried to be too subtle. The mysterious woman is never explained. Is she one of the sea people, calling Mora back? And the reference in the 20-year-old newspaper story could be a hint that Mora is not human, that she's some kind of ageless creature. Does Mora's fate come about because she's fallen in love with a human, so the sea rejects her?

But I think he was trying really hard to emulate Val Lewton, where the supernatural is significant not because it's real but simply because people believe it to be real. It's almost a remake of Cat People.

LOL sierranighttide July 31 2009, 20:11:14 UTC

I was told about this movie and forgot to rent it. Now I absolutely must rent it:)