NIGHT TIDE In Color - 1961

Here's another recently colorized horror movie about a young Navy recruit who meets a dark haired woman while he's on shore leave. He finds out that she plays a mermaid at the local carnival, and after a few strange occurrences, he starts to believe that she is a real mermaid that kills her suitors during full Moon cycles.

It stars Dennis Hopper as Johnny, Linda Lawson as Mora, Gavin Muir as Captain Murdock, Luana Anders as Ellen, Marjorie Eaton as Madame Romanovitch and Tom Dillon as the Merry-Go-Round owner.

We get a taste of jazz at the local beatnik club as Johnny enters the scene, there to relax and enjoy the music. He meets Mora and is having a conversation with her when a mysterious lady appears and speaks to Mora in a strange tongue. She gets up and leaves the club in haste.

Johnny follows her, stops her to talk with him, walks her to her place and gives her a kiss. The next day they're having lunch at her place! They're attracted to each other.

Later, she takes him to the place where she works as Mora the Mermaid, hey, it pays the bills.

Johnny's a friendly sort of person, while wandering around to carnival, he meets the owner of the Merry-Go-Round, his daughter Ellen and card reader Madame Romanovitch. Johnny tells them that he's seeing Mora and things get weird. Ellen tells him that Mora's last two boyfriends ended up dead! Johnny's confused.

Later he goes to talk to Mora's boss, Captain Murdock, who has some advice on dating Mora. It's about her history and he warns Johnny that he's in danger, Mora's not normal and is capable of doing him harm!

The bad news just keeps piling up, Madame Romanovitch has given him a reading and she also expresses concern about his safety. All the information is starting to play on his imagination about his relationship with Mora.

That night at Mora's place, Johnny's resting on a sofa waiting for her to come out of the bathroom. She comes out and starts kissing him and things get horrifying fast!

Johnny struggles to get free of some horrendous tentacles, he screams out and suddenly the tentacles are gone, and so is Mora.

He sees wet footprints on the floor leading out to the beach and follows them, where, he finds Mora crying out, holding onto a pier support pillar. He gets to her and carries her back to her place, she falls asleep.

The next day she wants to go scuba diving with Johnny, she wants to show him the underwater reef. Johnny's puzzled and doesn't really want to go for a dive, but he gives in...

So, they go diving, and keeping in mind it's a full Moon cycle, she cuts Johnny's air hose and leaves him to try and get to the surface before drowning! Mora then calmly swims back to shore.

Johnny barely makes it to the surface, then has a big freak out, he realizes that Mora just tried to kill him. He quietly sits in the boat for hours contemplating the event before going back to shore.

Back at his hotel room the next day, Johnny sees an ad telling the public about the events to go see at the carnival, including Mora the Mermaid.

So, he goes there in disguise to check out Mora's act.

Johnny goes inside to see Mora, and he starts getting all emotional, he can't believe how things have turned out...

Then, Captain Murdock shows up and tells Johnny that he must kill him in order to protect Mora from the authorities!

But, his bullet hits Mora's aquarium, causing it to shatter and pour the contents onto the floor, Mora lands on top of the captain, what the Hell!

Mora is dead, Captain Murdock explains everything to Lt. Henderson and Johnny. It goes like this... Mora was not a mermaid! No, she just fully believed that she was, and he killed her other two boyfriends to protect her from the real world, I guess. Hey, Mora thought she was a Mermaid, but she was really a Red Herring!! This in one strange 83 minute movie!