A "Manshark" becomes an ancient Greek sea monster when there's a BLOOD TIDE, on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

Upon receiving a tip about the whereabouts of his New Age-y older sister Madeline (Deborah Shelton, BODY DOUBLE) who has been out of contact with her family for four months, playboy Neil (Martin Kove, THE KARATE KID) and his new wife Sherry (Mary Louise Weller, THE EVIL) cut their honeymoon short and boat to the remote Greek island of Synoron. Instead of finding happy Greek peasants, they are greeted by strange children torturing a cat and inhospitable mayor Nereus (José Ferrer, HIRED TO KILL) who claims not to know anything about Neil's sister or if she is staying at the monastery of St. Cosmas on the island. Neil and Sherry eventually track Madeline down in the company of eccentric, Shakespeare-quoting amateur archaeologist Frye (James Earl Jones, EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC) who has been doing midnight dives beneath the island – with the help of bubbly Barbara (TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT's Lydia Cornell) – to a cave that was once above ground a thousand years before. Sister Anna (Lila Kedrova, THE NIGHT CHILD) is uneasy about a discovery Madeline has made in stripping away the soot of an ancient icon that appears to date hundreds of years before Christ and depicts the triumph of evil. Meanwhile, Frye discovers a bricked up entrance in the cave and blows it up. Soon, local girls start vanishing into the surf but neither Neil nor Frye buy rumors of shark attacks when it appears as if the locals are about to take up the practice of virgin sacrifice to appease an ancient flesh-eating god and Madeline may be the offering.

A Greek/American/British co-production, BLOOD TIDE plays like a more atmospheric version of THE DEVIL'S MEN with a clash of Catholic and Pagan beliefs in a remote Greek setting – the ancient coastal village of Monemvasia standing in for a Greek island – and exercising a strange effect on the villagers, primarily the children here as the adults seem more deliberate in their actions to conceal native superstitions and then act on them when the threat proves real. Although she gets an introductory credit, Shelton was already in the middle of a busy American television career but had also appeared in a trio of Greek exploitation films in the late 1970s (including DANGEROUS CARGO recently released on Blu-ray by Mondo Macabro). She, Cornell, and Weller provide the eye candy – along with Kove who spends most of the movie in short trunks – while Ferrer, Kedrova, and Jones provide some gravitas to what is a pretty silly monster movie; that is, a nice concept but a dodgy execution with the reveals of the monster more laughable than those of RAWHEAD REX (only a hand-puppet rather than a barely-mobile animatronic). The film's strengths are in the gorgeous photography of Aris Stavrou – miles away from his workmanlike contributions to THE DEVIL'S MEN – some striking production design by Aurelio Crugnola (THE EIGER SANCTION) augmenting the Greek locations, and a minimalist synth score by Jerry Mosely (FRIGHTMARE/THE HORROR STAR). Shelton provides a self-penned end credits song with music by her then-husband Shuki Levi (he of hundreds of Saban kids shows and DAWN OF THE MUMMY). First-time director Richard Jeffries had more success as a screenwriter with the subsequent genre entries SCARECROWS and COLD CREEK MANOR. Australian exploitation director Brian Trenchard-Smith (TURKEY SHOOT) is credited as co-producer and creative consultant which makes one wonder if he handled the film's post-production since Jeffries was not allowed to do so. Producer Nico Mastorakis would return to Monemvasia later in the decade to helm the superior suspense THE WIND.

Released theatrically by a pre-Menahem Golan 21st Century Film Corporation, BLOOD TIDE was released on VHS by Planet Video in 1982 and then by successor company Continental Video in 1984 in an evocative big box. The same murky transfer did the film no favors on various PD VHS and DVD releases in later years. Although the film was owned by Mastorakis' Omega Entertainment, it did not make it to DVD in remastered form in the 2000s but has been given a massive 4K overhaul for Arrow Video's Blu-ray. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer literally blows the earlier versions out of the water. What looked like a dark and flat 1970s TV movie once gains in every respect. Colors pop, sharp detail is apparent from the first close-up, and there is wonderful sense of depth in the many wide angle Steadicam shots wandering the streets of the village; indeed, this formerly bland-looking film boasts some strikingly gorgeous photography and lighting. The monster is the only thing that is not improved by the HD resolution. The original mono mix is unenhanced but the lossless LPCM 1.0 encoding gets the dialogue, music, and effects across capably (along with Shelton's theme song). Optional English SDH subtitle also translate the incidental Greek dialogue for the first time, and a second track with only the English subtitles for the Greek dialogue is enabled by default if the SDH subtitles are not turned on from the menu.

Jeffries provides an audio commentary in which he discusses in detail the many production hardships that compromised the production. He met Mastorakis in Los Angeles at Paramount Pictures before the latter decided self-finance would be better than working for Don Simpson (FLASHDANCE). Mastorakis proposed a B-movie called MANSHARK which the two developed into BLOOD TIDE, and Jeffries found himself a twenty-four year old heading a professional production in Greece with crew members from Athens, Mexico, Italy, America, and Britain. Weather, late equipment, and the demands of producer Donald Langdon (CARRY ON EMMANUELLE) wore on the production. Jeffries put his foot down about starting the edit during production only to be shut out of the post-production process by Langdon. He agrees with criticisms about the film's pacing and it being boring because it was edited differently than he intended, although he is not entirely disparaging of the production or the finished film. He speaks more happily of working with the cast and of some of the workarounds for the scheduling, doing a pickup day with several needed close-ups of Ferrer doing various facial reactions against small pieces of reconstructed set backgrounds to provide more coverage for the editing.