I asked you to vote on a movie for me to watch.  1982’s Blood Tide won.  Well, it won in so much as you had better fuckin’ believe I was going to cover White Comanche anyway (how could I not with William Shatner playing two roles).  So I decided Blood Tide, also known as Bloodtide, also known as Demon Island, was going to win.

Additionally, I kinda hate those of you who voted for this.

This flick has some recognizable people in it.  James Earl Jones, Jose Ferrer, Mary-Louise Weller (from Animal House), Martin Kove (who is usually a dick in his movies), Deborah Shelton (from Dallas), and Lydia Cornell (from Too Close for Comfort).  So it’s kinda bringing some star power to the table.  Maybe more than this blog is accustomed to, but still.  Darth Vader is in this movie as is a guy from Dracula’s Dog (Ferrer)!

So what’s the movie about?  Well, let me read from the Sci-Fi Classics 50-pack set from Mill Creek Entertainment:  “A legendary sea monster is awakened from centuries of sleep on a Greek island by an American archaeologist (James Earl Jones).  An island elder (Jose Ferrer) is aware of the legend of the beast, including its appetite for virgin sacrifices.”

While I’m 100% sure this movie will suck, I’m kinda into what  I’m reading here…  Archaeology, Greek islands, sea monster, virgins, appetites, sacrifice, legends…  I’m game.  Let’s get this thing rolling!

The movie starts off with a narration about how the early days, before civilization, good and evil lived in constant battle, and, as a way to guard themselves, humans would resort to sacrifice – virgin sacrifice (as the movie makes sure to drive home while showing a pretty, young girl headed for her doom).  Of course, when the girl gets to the sea monster’s lair, her dress slips down so you can see some tits off the top of the movie – which I’m all for seeing that in my virgin sacrifices.

Jump to the present day where two young lovers (Kove and Weller) arrive on a Greek island and they take a picture of some structures, to which this asshole guy keeps saying looks like the Alamo, like a total asshole would.  Some local kids toss a cat at them, because nothing in Greece looks like the fucking Alamo.

They are here looking for Kove’s sister (Shelton).  They meet with the old guy of the island who gives them some ideas where to find the missing sister.  The barkeep of this place where they are talking is named Dionysis, to which the lady makes a comment, like a fucking asshole, that it’s so very Greek to have a guy who sells wine have a name that sounds similar to the Greek god of wine and theater, Dionysus.  Ferrer just says that of course it’s so Greek to have this because they are FUCKING IN GREECE.  So far, aside from the kids who threw the cat at the couple, if you are not Greek in this movie, you’re an asshole and should just keep your asshole mouths shut, dumb American assholes.

Kove isn’t buying the fact that these people don’t know anything about his sister being missing.  So he eventually finds her, in the presence of James Earl Jones who is a bit jumpy and holds a knife to Kove’s throat.  With the mystery of the missing sister solved, movie over!  Yay!

Oh…  Oh no.  There’s still a whole bunch more to go.

Darth Earl Jones is kind of a weirdo.  He spouts Shakespeare and apparently once played Othello in a college state production.  For the audience, that is basically to say to us, “Yo, this is why he talks funny.  And why he wants to know what they did with the stolen Death Star plans.”  He explains that the natives aren’t going to be terribly friendly to Kove and Weller.  I think there’s a thinly veiled gay joke in here too.  Basically, Weller says something about how Kove is really straight, and Vader winks toward Shelton saying that at least someone in the family is.

Doesn’t matter, because in comes Barbara (Cornell) who is all blonde hair, and skin, and sexy.  Apparently, Jones keeps Cornell and Shelton around to help him with his archaeology.  I’m guessing these two can’t be sacrificed as virgins because…  Well…  Jones’ voice is pretty smooth.  So what we basically can read between the lines in this scene is Shelton has gone a little crazy.  Something about something she’s been studying on the island has pushed her at little over the edge or something.  This doesn’t seem to bother Jones or Cornell all that much – since Cornell does joke about calling her “Mad Madeline”.  Naturally, though, Kove is a bit concerned about his sister.  At least he can go back to his shitty hotel room and get plugged so he doesn’t get virgin sacrificed.

Late that night, Jones goes scuba diving which makes him breathe like Darth Vader before he dives in.  No shit, this movie drops a Star Wars reference for James Earl Jones.  Anyway, he has found a cavern that he can access by going underwater.  While in the cavern, he looks over a container of a bunch of these old coins used in the ancient sacrifices.  We also see he plans to use some C-4 on a walled up entrance to what appears to be a temple.  While he is down there in that cavern preparing to blow stuff up and reciting Othello, Cornell is just chilling on his boat reading a magazine, and Shelton is watching them on the cliff. The explosion from opening up that walled up entrance to the temple causes the whole island to shake.

At this point, I’d like to say a sea monster comes jumping out of the open wall and starts terrorizing Greece like Godzilla would Tokyo.  Sadly, that isn’t what happens.  All that comes out is some fog and some growling. I have a feeling we have to wait a real long time to see the monster.  However, Shelton has a dream about the monster and the cave painting did clearly show it has a hard shlong – clearly used on the virgins he wants sacrificed to him.  So I have a feeling there might be a girl getting dicked by a monster in this movie!

The next day, Kove, Weller, Shelton, Jones, and Cornell have a beach day.  Weller sees that Shelton is possibly meditating or something, but Shelton barely acknowledges Weller’s existence.  Meanwhile, James Earl Jones takes a watermelon and punches it open like a fucking man.  I shit you not – James Earl Jones punches a watermelon open with his bare fist.  He says it’s because you don’t use a knife to cut a watermelon.  Ergo, I guess you punch them.  Anyway, Weller gives Shelton, who finally does acknowledge her, a present from her and Kove because they’ve missed a couple of her birthdays.  Turns out to be some sort of perfume.  Shelton pours it all over her and gets into the Mediterranean and starts to rub her tits real sexy like.  Now, between this and the watermelon punching, we’ve come to a point in which I can say, without a doubt, this is the strangest scene in any movie covered here at B-Movie Enema.  Congratulations, Blood Tide, you’re officially a fucking weirdo movie.

On the way back, the boat runs into something in the water.  Jones discovers whatever they hit caused a propeller to crack.  He doesn’t say what happened, but he has black goo on his hands.  When they get back to dock, they learn a girl has gone missing after going swimming in the morning.  They forbid anyone from sailing out.  Shelton goes to a convent to meet with Sister Anna.  They discuss some paintings that seem to be layered on top of another that display different versions of good fighting evil.  I didn’t quite understand it but I guess it warns of some evil, probably a sea monster that’s probably named Bloodtide with a giant throbbing monster dick, that is coming.

But never mind that religious shit, let’s cut to Lydia Cornell doing some yoga on the beach to some bitchin’ 80s music.  Let’s not forget to have her take off her top to go swimming too.  Sadly, Bloodtide comes along and kills her proving Bloodtide is good to go on any woman regardless of the state of her hymen.

This makes Darth Vader drink more (I haven’t mentioned this yet, but James Earl Jones is constantly drinking as well as his penchant for punching watermelons open), and he goes to the beach yelling to find Cornell.  He finds her but she’s gone to pieces.  Literally.  During the funeral for Cornell and the other missing woman that was also found, Ferrer just comes along all nonchalantly and pries open the coffins to place some flowers and coins in their coffins.  This is that old idea that the coins and stuff are gifts to the ferryman to carry their souls across the River Styx.  I kinda wish I was listening to some Styx right now.  That would be rad.

In his rage, Jones goes to the cavern he blew the whole open to the temple, that he didn’t investigate further like a good archaeologist would, and freed Bloodtide.  This time he comes with a spear gun and probably loaded on booze.  In the boat, Kove is kinda thinking about jumping in behind him to see where he could possibly be what he’s up to down there.  Despite Weller’s protests, Kove jumps in because, presumably, he’s the man and he does what he wants no matter what some dumb broad tells him.  Kove finds the cavern, and Jones holds the spear gun to his face and bitches him out for being a spoiled kid and his sister being a weirdo (ahem… um… Mr. Vader, sir… You punch watermelons open,,, That kinda makes you a super weirdo too.).

Jones is mad about a bunch of his stuff missing, so he thinks Kove and his sister must have been the one behind that missing stuff, but since it all ties back to Bloodtide, I’m guessing it was the monster who took his shit.  So, Kove comes back up and decides to go confront his sister about all this crazy business.  He’s pissed about all the weird stuff she’s been a part of, and frankly I’m pissed we’ve gone 60 minutes into an 83 minute movie and not once have I actually seen Bloodtide aside from drawings depicting some cartoonish demon with a pretty big dick.

On the boat, Jones sees some kids playing on one of the cliffs.  One of the boys paints something on a girl’s forehead.  He watches as the girl falls off the cliff and into the water.  The girl’s mother goes into the water after the little girl, and before Jones can save them both, the mother is eaten by Bloodtide.  Jones dips back underwater to see what ate the woman, and we finally get a shot of our monster…

Jones brings the girl back to the dock and delivers her to Ferrer who tells him, after learning that Jones has seen Bloodtide, that he’s seen his death.  Darth Vader or no, I didn’t have a great feeling about Jones surviving this movie.  The man is a booze hound and, as we saw when he came back to dock with a bunch of coins, is a bit of a greedy shitwad.  Drunk off his ass, he tells Kove and Weller about his crazy day of seeing a monster that probably has a bigger dick than he does.  This scene is mostly him saying some cryptic weird shit, then either Kove or Weller asking what he said by repeating part of his cryptic shit, only for him to respond with “What?”  What the fuck is happening to this movie?

That night, some villagers parade through with a young girl and start to act out the sacrificial customs from the early part of the movie.  Now, this girl is considerably younger than the girl at the beginning of the movie so it’s kind of less settling if you catch my drift.  Anyway, Ferrer explains to Jones that they are acting this ceremony out to placate the evil that Jones awoke.

Meanwhile, we see through Bloodtide’s P.O.V. that he’s walking through the little town.  That’s when, after we get some shots of stuff happening inside the convent where Shelton is currently at, we can put two and two together that Bloodtide is headed there.  Why?  Because nuns are virgins.  This made me chuckle way more than it should have picturing Bloodtide engorging himself on nuns.

I should say that is not exactly the case though, but dammit if it wouldn’t be hilarious if it was the end goal.  In actuality, it is tracking Shelton because she is the one who is destined to sacrifice herself to Bloodtide to A) find fulfillment and B) satiate Bloodtide so he won’t bother them anymore.  While the little ceremony happens, Sister Anna comes stumbling in covered in blood and tattered clothing.  Kove realizes Bloodtide came to the convent and he needs to go save his sister.  He, Weller, and Jones go to the convent where they find a bunch of dead nuns and see the painting of the dick demon and the virgin.  Jones says that Shelton is going to go and give up herself to Bloodtide.

She goes into the cavern to await Bloodtide and, after putting one the ancient coins found in the cavern in her mouth, she starts writhing real sexy like while her brother comes in calling her name.  He wakes her from her sex trance (the only term I had for it, folks, because she was real surprised when she wakes up).  Jones has Kove take her out of the cavern, and he decides to wait for Bloodtide with the rest of his explosives that woke the monster up in the first place.  After a brief struggle with Bloodtide, Jones is able to blow it the fuck up proving that there is no religion that can stand up to a good few pounds of C-4.

By the way, this happens between brother and sister proving that you really shouldn’t spend too much time in Greece:

This movie isn’t terrible, but it seems like it really misses the opportunity to be great.  First of all, it was totally put together as if it was meant to be shown on TV.  There’s the one brief moment of nudity that did not need to be there at all and easy to cut around.  Its only purpose was to give you the first taste of the fact that the virgins who are sacrificed are apparently boning the creature too.  So it’s purely there for the first hint of the sexual nature of the sacrifice.  They don’t show Bloodtide actually having his way with Deborah Shelton.  That would have been ballsy and memorable.  So she just writhes on a rock by herself.  I am not displeased with that, but it would have reached all new heights if a fish monster was on top of her going to town.

The movie is actually well acted, for what material they were given.  Kove, best known as the dickhead sensei of Cobra Kai is not totally unlikable as the protective big brother.  Neither is James Earl Jones though he’s not to really be well liked.  The trio of beauties in this movie are definitely worth gazing at, and thank god for the costume designer putting zero money in the budget toward bras.  There’s THO all over the place in this movie and for that, I salute you, sir or madame.

It’s not boring, but it’s not memorable beyond the idea that the monster wants to have sex with virgins and Deborah Shelton writhes around on a rock for a few minutes.  I’d say this gets a hard pass from me for most people who are curious about it.