Beware of the Sea: 3 Classic horror films that you can watch right now
- Liz Publika
- Feb 5, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Dec 29, 2025
by Liz Publika
Bloodtide (1982)
Director: Richard Jefferies (as Richard Jeffries)
Writers: Richard Jefferies (screenplay), Nico Mastorakis (screenplay)
Stars: James Earl Jones, José Ferrer, Lila Kedrova
Blood Tide follows American couple Neil and Sherry Grice as they travel to a remote Greek island to find Neil’s missing sister, Madeline, an artist who disappeared after visiting the island. Upon their arrival, they encounter the island’s elderly mayor and strange villagers, and soon spot Madeline in a trance-like state with a treasure hunter named Frye. When Frye uses explosives in an underwater cavern, he accidentally unleashes a dormant ancient monster that begins terrorizing the island and causing young women to vanish or die. As the creature’s attacks escalate, the villagers resort to old sacrificial practices to appease it...
Night Tide (1961)
Director: Curtis Harrington
Writers: Curtis Harrington (screenplay), Curtis Harrington (short story)
Stars: Dennis Hopper, Linda Lawson, Gavin Muir
Night Tide follows sailor Johnny Drake, who meets a mysterious young woman named Mora while on shore leave in Santa Monica. Mora works as a mermaid in a sideshow attraction on the boardwalk, and she tells Johnny that her guardian, Captain Murdock, found her as an orphan on a Greek island. As the two grow closer, townspeople warn Johnny that Mora’s previous boyfriends died under unexplained circumstances. Mora confides that she believes she is a siren, a mythic creature that lures sailors to their deaths, especially under the influence of the moon. Johnny initially dismisses this as delusion, but during a full-moon scuba dive Mora severs his air hose, forcing him to surface while she disappears into the sea...
Phantom Ship (1935)
Director: Denison Clift
Writers: Denison Clift (story), Charles Larkworthy (scenario)
Stars: Bela Lugosi, Shirley Grey, Arthur Margetson
Phantom Ship, or The Mary Celeste, was an American brigantine that set sail from New York on November 7, 1872, bound for Genoa, Italy, with a cargo of denatured alcohol and a crew that included Captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife Sarah, their two-year-old daughter Sophia, and seven sailors. On December 5, a British ship called the Dei Gratia found the Mary Celeste adrift about 400 miles east of the Azores with its sails set and no one aboard. The vessel was seaworthy, had ample food and water, and the cargo and personal belongings were mostly intact, but the lifeboat was missing, and there was no trace of the ten people who had been on board. The fate of the crew remains one of history’s most enduring mysteries...