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. 

Psychotronic Movie of the Week: Hercules In the Haunted World (1961)

HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD
(aka HERCULES IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH)
1961
Woolner Brothers
Italy

Produced by Achille Piazzi
Directed by Mario Bava

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

This is the only Hercules movie that really makes it as a fantasy.  Depending on your mood (or age), it can be scary and exciting or pretty funny. Hercules (Reg Park) goes to Hell! Yes -- he and a pal go to Hades to obtain a precious plant to cure an ailing princess. They encounter many wonders, including Christopher Lee as the evil Lichas, servant of Pluto, some giant rock men, seas of lava, and a tempting naked maiden in chains. Hercules throws boulders and overcomes all obstacles. Lee does not play a vampire (as implied in some of the ads). Hercules and the Captive Women, also with Park is worth catching as well.

 

Psychotronic Movie of the Week: Johnny Cash in Five Minutes To Live (1961)

Five Minutes To Live (aka Door to Door Maniac) was a 1961 thriller starring Johnny Cash and Vic Tayback. They hatch a scheme to rob a bank by taking the branch vice president's wife hostage and giving him five minutes to hand over the money or she'll get it. Only hitch? He was about to ask her for a divorce, throwing a monkey wrench into the plan. It's a well paced, fast little potboiler, and Cash is great in his first acting role as a cold blooded killer with a guitar. He performs the title song and is shown pickin' and singin' a few times in the film. 

Tayback is suitably sleazy as his partner in crime, and the movie also stars Donald Woods as the bank executive and Cay Forester, who also wrote the screenplay, as his wife. Director Bill Karn previously did a lot of tv work, most notably Gang Busters, and also helmed Ma Barker's Killer Brood the previous year. Sutton Pictures handled the original 1961 release, but AIP got a hold of it in '66 and gave it the Door to Door Maniac title.