On a remote Mediterranean island, a drunken, Shakespeare-quoting treasure hunter named Frye (James Earl Jones) sets off an underwater explosion that awakens a long-dormant sea monster, to whom the natives must now sacrifice virgins or else become monster-lunch themselves. A premise like that could have made for a fun movie, but instead it made for this one.Two young newlyweds, Neil (Martin Kove) and Sherri (Mary Louise Weller), spend their honeymoon on the island, where the groom's sister, Madeline (Deborah Shelton), has gone missing. Because who doesn't want to spend their honeymoon searching for a lost relative? Madeline turns up about ten minutes in, leaving a good 73 minutes of dull, uneventful scenes in which very little happens beyond gobs of stilted dialogue.Top billing here goes to James Earl Jones and Jose Ferrer (as the village elder), seasoned professionals who knew they were slumming. Ferrer seems half-asleep while Jones spits out his lines in a way that suggests anger-management issues. And yet, they're the only ones with a shred of professionalism. The others have no acting skills and must have been cast for their pretty faces and supple bodies. This includes Lydia Cornell, future co-star of the sitcom "Too Close for Comfort." (She plays a convincing corpse, though.) And Martin Kove is a dead ringer for "Baywatch"-era David Hasselhoff.Item: When Neil and Sherri arrive on the island, some kids throw a cat at them from atop a flight of stairs. It's their idea of a prank.Item: In an underwater cave, Frye quotes Shakespeare with a snorkel in his mouth. The end result ain't exactly Kenneth Branagh.Item: When Lydia Cornell's character goes skinny-dipping and sees some old men watching her, she gets mad and shouts, "I thought you Greeks only liked little boys!"Item: The sea monster gets about five seconds of screen time; it resembles an underwater sockpuppet.Item: Given the choppiness of the action scenes, I have to wonder if there's a longer cut of this film in which the monster appears more.Item: The sound effects are ridiculously loud, to a point of drowning out the dialogue. In a beach scene, the gently lapping waves of the Mediterranean sound like rhinos humping in a marsh. Perhaps the Foley artist was hard of hearing?Item: Near the end of the film, Madline gives Neil a passionate, lingering lip-kiss. They're supposed to be brother and sister.Item: The film score is by some guy noodling around on a Moog.

It wouldn't be unfair to say that Greece hasn't got the best pedigree when it comes to movies. There doesn't really appear to have been a film industry in action there at any point in time. Probably the best effort I have seen from that country is the notorious Island of Death. Its director Nico Mastorakis was also responsible for the screenplay of, this film, Blood Tide. There's no way that the latter film is as good as the former but I have to say I didn't really find it all that bad either. It's about a shady archaeologist who inadvertently unleashes a legendary evil creature from its century's long sleep. It's true that it is fairly uneventful from a horror point-of-view but overall I thought that the events surrounding the sea monster had just enough intrigue to keep this one afloat.The monster itself is hardly seen. Mostly we encounter it via point-of-view camera-work. When it is seen briefly, it doesn't in all honesty look that bad but I guess the film-makers thought otherwise. There are a couple of gory attacks in the water and a massacre of nuns at a monastery, while the chopped up remains of a victim are found on the beach. But mainly, this is a slow burner with little visceral material. I thought the plot strands about the ancient drawings that are found in the monastery that depict the monster was quite good as well and added a decent level of interest.It never escapes the fact that it's obviously hampered by a low budget though but the exotic Greek location does add some worthwhile production value. And it also has James Earl Jones at its disposal too; seemingly he did the film in order to get a paid-for holiday. But much better is Deborah Shelton as the enigmatic woman who ultimately offers herself as a virginal sacrifice to the beast; she was very beautiful and added a welcome sensual aspect that didn't do the film any harm at all.

In ancient times the inhabitants of a Greek island sacrificed their daughters to a reptilian creature that lived in a cave under the sea. It went into hibernation and was eventually sealed inside the cave but the superstitions remained. Then one day two people, "Madeline Grice" (Deborah Shelton) and "Frye" (James Earl Jones) came to the island and discovered some old coins hidden in what turned out to be the exact same cave. Thinking that there may be a valuable treasure behind the sealed door, Frye blows it open with plastic explosives. This causes the creature to awaken and feed on people one by one. Now, while this might sound like a plausible plot for a film, certain key elements seem to be missing which requires the viewer to fill in the blanks. Along with that, the acting is mediocre, the special effects were bad and the dialogue is even worse. About the only good things about this movie are the local scenery and some attractive ladies to include Deborah Shelton, Mary Louise Weller (as "Sherry Grice") and Lydia Cornell ("Barbara"). But it wasn't nearly enough.

Let's just go ahead and skip the cinematography, character development, even the plot, and get right to the point: There is a Dragon. It is well endowed. It rapes a bunch of nuns. We don't get to see that. What the heck. 2 out of 10.Addendum: The only correct way to eat a melon is to punch it. Thank you James.Seriously though, pretty shocking to think that virgin sacrifices are virgin for a reason. This cherry-popping' dragon has a lot of character development that we miss. I mean, what's his motivation?More importantly, is the last surviving nun pregnant with his rape- dragon-baby?Looking forward to the sequel!