Curtis Harrington's first feature captures the Val Lewton (Cat People) spirit, creating horror not on the screen but in the mind of the viewer, and evoking a world of legend, poetry and the occult that inserts itself into the everyday. In a California seaside locale, a young sailor on leave (Dennis Hopper) falls in love with a woman posing as a mermaid in a waterfront sideshow. Childhood fears have convinced this orphaned girl that she is a changeling, and she attempts to murder her lover. But within the context of Harrington's Poe-like conceit, she might well be a changeling. Critic Raymond Durgnat writes, "Night Tide has an impeccable professional gloss and control of style.... Space and shadow are used with splendid precision.... (The film) implies the uncanny in terms of open-air breakfasts overlooking sunlit beaches...."