Late one night, or actually early one morning, I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I clicked on the tube, and stumbled across a black and white movie featuring a baby-faced young blond actor. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it … and then, was it really? Yep, Dennis Hopper like I’d never seen him.

Cute. Innocent, even. And lovestruck to the point of potential madness. Delicious!

Having caught the movie several minutes in, I didn’t quite know what to expect. Soon enough there was a mysterious gypsy reading his cards, a coffee house girl warning him against his “one true love” and a beautiful, scantily clad woman with a thick accent … who turned into a murderous octopus during a dream. I couldn’t give it up.

Some of the older horror movies rely on an easily shocked audience and bad costuming, and while there is just a smidge of that in Night Tide, this really is an intellectual movie. You hope, you fear, you question. Harkened to the likings of The Twilight Zone, this really is a story that will stay with you.

Dennis Hopper plays navyman, Johnny (of course it would be “Johnny”) Drake, who meets a tempting and mysterious carnival worker while on leave. Mora (Linda Lawson) works as a mermaid in a sideshow act, but when her lovers keep turning up dead, folks begin to wonder if she’s more than just an act.

Teasing and genuine, you’ll enjoy this sumptuous black and white delight from Hopper’s early career. I know I did.