Psychotronic Movie of the Week: Night Tide (1961)

NIGHT TIDE 

1961

American International Pictures 

United States

Producer: Aram Kantarian

Director: Curtis Harrington

Michael J. Weldon writes in The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film:

An excellent low-budget fantasy (?) with Dennis Hopper as a sailor on leave in a small California seaside resort. He becomes obsessed with an orphaned girl (Linda Lawson) who plays a mermaid at a sideshow. She believes herself to be a descendant of the "sea people" and must kill during the full moon. Avant-garde director Curtis Harrington did this odd CAT PEOPLE-inspired movie after making a series of experimental shorts. He's now known as a TV horror-film director and seems to have lost most of what made NIGHT TIDE so memorable. Co-star Luana Anders later starred in Coppola's DEMENTIA 13. With Gavin Muir and Bruno Ve Sota.