August 1, 1959 [The Tingler]

The monsters in low-grade movies like to bite—and it also appears that their reach is growing, if William Castle is to be believed: There he was in The Tingler's prologue helpfully reminding us, “a scream at the right time may save your life.”

The Tingler itself is a kind of animate spinal column, a shiny-black chittering centipede yanked out of a mute woman who'd died of fright without screaming—and it's the scream that kills the Tingler: If you don't let loose with a good one, the thing clamps down and cracks your backbone like a walnut.

Ridiculous—but don’t tell that to my son, who was in a frenzy to see this picture—Mr. Castle having worked his advance charm, a true carnival huckster, giving us everything we’d hoped for before the movie even started. So Pete was more than ready to be scared to death—and Vincent Price was more than willing to accommodate, a cynical scientist sick of his hotsy-totsy wife and sneering at everyone as though they were disposable lab animals. And so Pete was right, the picture was frightening: a movie about the impassive nastiness one finds at times only in the movies—there’s even a scene in which the Tingler gets loose in a theater, and Price looks right at you and entreats you to start screaming, while the Tingler noses around the feet of the moviegoers. And most of the kids and teenagers pitched in—some louder, more honestly hysterical than others.

So what if Vincent Price has a pencil mustache and pours a bit too much oil into his voice, and the Tingler itself is pulled jerkily on a string. There's something about a movie like this—Castle’s ruthless little imagination at work, the blood-red color sequence discomfiting, the casual cruelty grimy on the screen—that nudges the Tingler a little further into my head (down my spine?) than I wanted it to—my son sitting next to me, clutching my forearm and passing along a little whimpering shock.

Comments

  1. Out of all the Castle gimmicks, I think the Tingler is my favorite. Especially the part about it getting loose in the theater. I wouldn't have loved to experience that when it first came out!

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  2. I mean I *would* have loved to experience it. Man, I've been writing too many comments today! Darn blogathon.

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  3. Thanks so much for your great post - I've seen "The Tingler" many times, and I absolutely LOVE it, but you've given a new perspective to the picture - that it really does have scary/disturbing elements in it, in spite of its deliberate send-up humor. I've seen this film in a theater in which the seats were wired to give an electric "buzz" (as Castle had originally intended) when the Tingler gets loose, and the audience response was astonishing! If you haven't yet seen it, you might also like Castle's "Homicidal," which he made an an hommage to "Psycho" - it's also a wild horror send-up, but with some great, frightening moments.

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  4. @GRand Old Movies: I saw this when I was a little kid, and wanted The Constant Viewer to capture that experience--second-hand, this time, through his son, but with a hint that he's creeped out, too. I've always felt this undercurrent of unease when watching B-horror films. When I was a kid, I knew that I didn't want to meet not only the monsters but also the people who made the monster movies!

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  5. I love articles where people share their filmgoing experiences with other people. Your description of your son's enthusiasm was just the kind of personal touch that I wanted in articles for this blogathon. Great work!

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  6. I've never seen The Tingler but I am familiar with William Castle. John Goodman's character in the 1993 movie Matinee is a tribute to Castle and actually how I first found out about him.
    Also thanks for sharing the experience of seeing this movie in the theater with your son!

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  7. After you eliminate the series films that Castle did for Columbia in the 1940s (The Whistler flicks, etc.) The Tingler is probably my favorite of his films, along with House on Haunted Hill. Tingler is gimmicky, to be sure but there are some incredibly striking images in it (the sequence with the blood coming out of the tub is still pretty amazing). Thanks for a great review, Paul!

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  8. Along with The Tingler, the original version of The Fly can be pretty traumatic. Of course there's that famous help-me!help-me! final scene; but the entire concept of the boy looking for the white-headed fly is unsettling. Gore horrifies, but horror makes one despair.

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  9. Paul, you did a wonderful job of bringing to life how it feels to be in a real theater showing THE TINGLER! You really captured the sights, sounds, and sensations of William Castle's fun movie theater gimmicks, and yet even when you've seen it before and you know what to expect, the film still makes you jump and shriek in all the right places. The blood in the bathtub is even more yelp-worthy in color! By the way, you might also remember that actress Judith Evelyn, who played the poor mute woman, also played the eccentric sculptress in REAR WINDOW (one of my favorites).

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  10. Dorian TB: I didn't know that about Judith Evelyn. So many fine character actors over the decades ...

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  11. I agree with what others have said before me: I love the personal touch you bring to your review. Normally, I have a prejudice against gimmicky films, but I may have to make an exception.

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  12. @Rachel: One of my movie-going heroes is Robert Warshow, who famously wrote, "A man goes to the movies. The critic must be honest enough to admit that he is that man." For decades his phrase "the immediate experience" has been a deeply felt motto for many film-lovers, myself included. I try to reflect that in this "imaginary cinema diary" as the diarist makes his way through a century-plus life at the movies, his wife and children, friends and strangers with him. I'm glad you enjoy going with him.

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