Customer Reviews

Blood Tide

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Ancient monster is unleashed on Greek Island where a man (Martin Kove) goes to search for his sister. James Earl Jones, Jose Ferrer and Lila Kedrova add credibility to this somewhat predictable thriller, but you can't help in getting swept away as the story unfolds. The awful music score and murky photography make this look ultra-cheap, and the ending is pretty thrill-less, but overall good in a trashy sort of way.

Visitors' curiosity while on a Greek island unleashes an ancient creature upon unsuspecting island goers. This very low-budget film suffers from poor lighting but has a solid cast (James Earl Jones, Jose Ferrer, Martin Kove and Oscar-winner Lila Kedrova) and an intriguing enough premise that it draws you in, even if it is far from a classic.

If you like schlock, you will like this movie. Seeing a younger James Earl Jones is a curiousity. The acting really isn't bad. The story is discombobulated, at best. But it's entertaining -- you could do worse. Not appropriate for younger viewers due to a one-second glimpse of a pair of mammary glands.

We are treated to a quickie frontal flash view of Greek virgin to hold our attention through the move in hope of more. In this ancient ritual she has a coin in her mouth and a smile on her face as she is about to become creature chow.

Flash forward, Neil Grice (Martin Kove) and wife (Mary-Louise Weller) came to this Greek island to find his wayward sister. He meets authorities with negative attitudes and other strange beings as Frye (James Earl Jones). Fry has some sort of underwater secret. We also see that when Frye lies on his back on the beach the James Earl Jones stomach is almost flat. Oddly enough if the sister (Deborah Shelton) can be found she will turn out to be a tasty virgin artist with secrets of her own.

This movie would not live up to its name sake if they did not free an ancient creature with the munchies. Does he only eat virgins or is he omnivorous and snack on anything that moves?

How will this all end?

Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women

"Blood Tide" is an extremely cheap monster movie from 1982. It stars some very talented people, most notably the wonderful James Earl Jones as Frye, the legendary Jose Ferrer as Nereus, and the unknown Spyros Papafrantzizas as Dionysis [sic].

The movie opens with a little background on ancient virgin sacrifices then turns abruptly to the world of watercraft recreation. Indeed, the bulk of this film consists of either footage of boats whizzing around Greece, James Earl Jones chewing the scenery and mean tempered (watch for the spear gun intimidation scene), or various rituals in an old church.

The plot is somewhat reminiscent of "Jaws" (OK, it's in many ways fairly blatant...) especially the first "monster devouring girl" scene which is extremely similar (down to the skinny dipping subplot) to the famed "Chrissie's death" scene in "Jaws." It seems that the monster that hungers for the ancient virgin sacrifices has come back to life and is now devouring women at an alarming rate. There is a lot of prattling on about the monster, and many talky scenes, a lot of which take place in the dark; so dark, in fact that sometimes you can hear dialogue, but can only see pure black on the screen. (I wondered if my monitor had malfunctioned at one point. Really.)

This movie gets my vote for worst soundtrack of 1982, featuring not only a faux-pop song of extremely poor quality over closing credits (by Deborah Shelton), but also many extended piercing electronic notes designed to induce terror, or at least a little malaise. The monster itself (created by Vince Jeffords) is utterly laughable (and stays offscreen until about an hour into the film). Overall, the movie would probably rate one star if not for the talents of Jones and Ferrer, who do as much damage control as can be done.

Fans of bad movies may want to watch this once, but once is definitely enough. It is of thoroughly marginal quality, but does not contain enough camp value to make it a real joy to watch.

BLOOD TIDE is an interesting movie. It's sort of a monster movie, but we see so little of the actual monster or it's exploits, that it's easy to forget about it altogether! When we do see it, we get underwater stalking scenes not unlike those in JAWS. Aside from this, we get three bodacious babes and that mean guy from KARATE KID running around on a Greek island. There's also a nutty treasure-hunter (James Earl Jones) and an even nuttier town leader (Jose Ferrer). It seems there's an ancient curse on the island. The rarely seen monster is unleashed when Jones' character, Frye uses plastic explosives to open a sealed gate in an underwater cave. This gives us some rather decent flesh-munching sequences! Only a virgin sacrifice can stop the creature before it kills everyone. Will anyone survive? No spoilers here! BT is nothing spectacular, but it does have enough going on to be entertaining...

Gorgeous Greek locales and the ever-strong presence of Mr. James Earl Jones is not enough to save this shlock. I'm a big fan of monster movies, especially aquatic monster movies and this one delivers none of the cheesy entertainment you'd expect from greats such as Humanoids from the Deep and Piranha.

Martin Kove(bad guy from Karate Kid)and his wife venture to a remote and lovely Greek island in the Aegean, looking for Kove's sister. Typical of most Greek cultures, the islanders are far from friendly and the town mayor(Jose Ferrer) makes it clear that their welcome is officially worn out. But Kove is deadset on finding his sister, which he does, although she isn't too thrilled to see him. In fact, she's gotten a case of the weirdies. Along with her are Othello-quoting treasure hunter Frye(JEJ) and his blonde bimbo mistress. The sister is too wrapped up in uncovering the secrets of an ancient painting to leave, so Kove and his wife opt to stay. Frye, meanwhile, is frequently entering an underwater cave which has a large doorway that was walled up long ago. Thinking there's some goodies in there, he blows the place open with plastics and before you know it something is gobbling up young girls on the island. The mayor reveals that in ancient times a deadly sea beast dwelled beneath the island and it was only through the good ol' fashioned practice of virgin sacrifice that the creature was kept at bay. Can Kove and Frye stop the rubbery nonexistent monster before Kove's gorgeous but brainless soap opera actress sister offers herself up as the next main course?

First and foremost, Blood Tide has a terribly disappointing villain in its sea monster. The creature is barely seen, but when shown, it is a pathetic skinned horse/camel/dragon creature that certainly isn't the least bit frightening. I understand that many Greek sea monsters of mythology where often mammalian but personally I like my sea monsters to be reptillian or fish-like. Another thing that takes away this monster's scare factor is the fact that it has a wrinkled horse-like mouth filled with blunt incisor teeth instead of big sharp flesh ripping fangs which you usually expect of big sea predators. Also, the monster is dispatched relatively easily by monster standards, and one wonders why the ancestors of these Greeks didn't simply find someone brave enough and strong enough to take the creature out himself instead of imprisoning it. The only saving grace to this creature are the curious sound effects and underwater POV photography used. The waters of the Aegean are largely devoid of a lot of marine life so watching the monster stalk his victims through these deserted waters is somewhat effective.

But there is soooo much that is soooo bad with this film! The Greek culture is nicely portrayed, with a small hinted subplot about the clash between christianity and the traditional beliefs of the islanders. Jose Ferrer is wasted, but he has been in similarly awful films so its no huge loss. The Americans definitely fulfill the stereotype of the loud obnoxious tourists that people have come to know and hate, with Kove's wife remarking how "Greek" everyone is and Jone's girlfriend playing loud obnoxious 80's aerobic workout music on an otherwise lovely beach. There is no character developement whatsoever, and we never know why Kove's sister just up and decided to venture out to the island in the first place, nor why the islanders wanted to keep her a secret. Overall, Blood Tide is a lame monster flick that is short on monsters and thrills and long on yawns.

One more saving grace, the main piano theme is pretty stirring.

An American treasure hunter (James Earl Jones) awakens an ancient sea creature who has been resting for centuries near the shores of a Greek island. It's up to the island's lifelong residence to stop the creature from executing it's wrath on humanity. One man in particular (Jose Ferrer) had been studying the history of the monster and now his knowledge is nothing less than imperative to the villager's survival.

Ever seen a movie that just made you angry? BLOOD TIDE made me quite angry. James Earl Jones visits a Greek island and frees a monster who starts eating the local women. James, how could you go from STAR WARS to this?

And don't you just hate it when the Monster Staff design a cool creature, but then the director decides to be a jerk and give the beast about three seconds of screentime? That's exactly what they did here. And what's with that cheesey pop song in the end credits?

Avoid this tripe. It could of been so cool, but wound up sucking hard.

Blood Tide stars James Earl Jones (Field of Dreams, The Lion King), Joe Ferrer (Blood & Orchids, Dune), Lila Kedrova (Some Girls, A Star for Two), Mary Louise Weller (Q, Forced Vengeance), Martin Kove (Messages, Con Games), Lydia Cornell (Biggest Fan, Steel) and Deborah Shelton (Blood Type). the story goes as this, Jones dives deep down into the water where he finds a secret entrance that he has to blow up which he thinks treasures lie behind it. When he blows it up he unleashes a pretty ridiculous looking sea monster in which back in the day the villagers sacrificed virgins to it. It starts to attack people in the small community and when Jones' blonde bouncy friend bites the dust Jones goes after the sucka to rid it. Pretty much a waste of cast and time.