Rent Night Tide (1961)

Supernatural Romance. - Night Tide review by Steve

Zero budget cult horror fantasy, shot along the California coast, and set in an empty amusement park, which evokes a dreamy maritime ambience. It is slow with a bare, prosaic script, but it has that strange, ethereal mood that amateur productions sometimes have because they are made in unconventional ways.

There's a cast of mostly tv support actors, but Dennis Hopper leads as Johnny, a sailor in the US navy who falls in love with a mysterious stranger (Linda Lawson), who poses as a mermaid in the fair. She is being investigated by the police as two of her boyfriends have been found dead...

The old sailor who runs the mermaid attraction (Gavin Muir) tells Johnny that the girl is a siren from the sea who tempts men to their death... The fortune teller thinks the sailor is in deep peril. So who is crazy? Maybe it's even Johnny who keeps having nightmares about the sea.

This is an atmospheric, homemade film which demonstrates what can be done with very little money but plenty of imagination. The eerie music is effective, particularly the echoey flute themes. The lack of budget for extras makes this a deserted, lonely world, with a melancholy that stays in the memory..