Blood Tide (1982)

The story is about a couple on a Greek island which has an ancient sea monster nearby who requires human sacrifice. It's a slow moving film with a limited amount of gore. There's a couple of gore sequences that are shown underwater when the monster attacks and eats people, but there isn't any extreme gore. There's an emphasis placed on the films location, suspense and character development to engage the viewer instead of gore. This is actually a very well done low-budget horror flick with excellent scenery, suspense, nice soundtracks, some good atmosphere, and it's very well directed and acted.

James Earl Jones gives the picture more credibility than it would otherwise achieve. Jones provides the climax, avenging Barbara against the monster. He blows up the cave & stays in it to die with the monster. Black men seem always to have to die in monster pictures but at least Jones goes out the central hero, not the minority sidekick who dies so that massah can live. The script's storyline could easily have been handed over to the sister & brother team (Deborah Shelton & Martin Kove) but fortunately someone knew who was playing the only character anyone would ever care about. Jones is definitely the lead, despite that he did not have top billing in the original release, but only in retrospect when all the other actors are long forgotten. - weirdwildrealm

Directed by Richard Jefferies
Starring: James Earl Jones, José Ferrer, Lila Kedrova, Mary Louise Welle