BloodTide

Blood Tide (1982)

The movie opens back in the Bronze Age with a woman being marked and fed to a strange monster by the ancient Greeks. Then the film flashes forward to the future where James Earl Jones plays Frye, an amateur archeologist in search of treasure. After discovering an underwater cavern he blasts open a sealed passageway and unknowingly unleashes a terrible monster on the locals. After the creature attacks and kills his woman Frye decides he has to make up for letting it loose by killing it. Going with him is Neil, whose sister is predestined to be the creature’s bride! Together they sneak back into the cavern, rescue the girl, and blow the creature up.

This is a predictable monster movie that suffers from a sluggish plot. The story is very slow and features too many scenes of characters swimming, walking on the beach, and staring at the ocean. This time could have been used to establish the characters or create some sort of connection between the past and the present. But not much happens, even after the creature shows up and starts to kill off anyone it can find in the sea, before dragging itself on land to do the same again. The only saving grace that this movie has is it’s cast. James Earl Jones does a decent job in the role of the treasure hunter Frye. He isn’t a nice man and is pretty nasty to his girlfriend. But after the creature kills her he gets drunk and wants revenge. While this isn’t the most original character Jones gets a lot of mileage out of it and he is fun to watch. Martin Kove (The Karate Kid) also does a good job in the role of the concerned brother Neil. While the movie might not be that good, these actors bring enough to their roles to make the movie better than it has any right to be.

The most obvious technical bit about this movie is that they had no budget for a monster. That is obvious by the creature’s lack of screen time. When it does show up it looks incredibly stupid. I’m not sure if it was made of papier-mâché or rubber, but I’ve seen better monsters in uber low budget 50s sci-fi movies. This is surprising given how well the rest of the movie is made. The camera work is good, including a couple of underwater scenes, which are always difficult. I also thought the sets and locations were chosen well and looked great. Honestly with the exception of the not so special effects the movie is top notch.

In the end the slow story and bad creature effects doom this movie to the good try category. If you want to check this one out it is available on several budget discs. I got mine out of a $5 bin with 4 other movies in the set. But really I can’t imagine ever watching this one again, and I’m a sucker for monster movies.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer