The Tingler

There is a real pleasure in watching old Vincent Price movies. There is little in the way of special effects, so you have to rely on the skills of the actor. he is and was magnificent.

The premise is just too ridiculous to comprehend - we have a tingler in our spine that reacts to fear. Screaming will neutralize it. It's a neat gimmick, and director William Castle took advantage of post war audiences to capitalize on it.

The "creature" looked like a runner centipede that was two feet long. It was so unreal that it was funny, but it made for a great movie, and a spine-tingling ending.

You can never go wrong with an old Price movie.

Plus you probably get to see the first LSD trip on film.

William Castle was a great filmmaker. Many people would disagree because no one Castle film stands out as being great. Yet Castle was a great innovator that made going to the movies more than just a way to spend time to an experience. His gimmicks, although not usable today, are not what his movies are about. His films are about stories, pretty good ones at that. The Tingler is no exception. It is a tale of horror and science. It concerns itself with a doctor trying to prove that each of us has a tingler within us that gets bigger when we are in a state of fear and is repelled by our screaming. Although the scientific merit of this story seems somewhat implausible, Castle makes it seem very credible through his story-telling techniques. Some scenes in the movie are just wonderful. Vincent Price is excellent as the doctor questing for answers and then faced with a moral dilemma as to what should be done with his newly found knowledge. If you like science fiction, Vincent Price, or just a good old-fashioned horror yarn....The Tingler is for you!

"The Tingler" is the name that Vincent Price's likable scientist character gives to the creature that apparently is responsible for the sense of spine-tingling fear we all experience at some point in our lives. If we scream, The Tingler is rendered harmless. If we do not, The Tingler will get us!

This is classic William Castle gimmick stuff. When this black and white masterpiece of schlock was originally shown in theaters, devices would be rigged up underneath theater seats which would "tingle" during a certain scene. The film would then seemingly stop, and the audience would be encouraged to scream! Scream for their LIVES! Of course, the audience was happy to oblige and the Tingler would be defeated. Man, how I regret having missed those days of cheesy ballyhoo.

This film has some really nifty stuff in it. Highlights include Vincent Price's "acid" trip (reportedly the first acid trip ever seen on the silver screen), and a cool hallucinatory color sequence with a deaf mute woman menaced by a bathtub full of blood, among other things. The plot is clever and actually pretty well thought out for a B flick, and Vincent is superb, as he always is. This is an absolutely hysterical film that should not be missed. I can't say enough good things about it - it simply has to be seen to be appreciated. It's campy, seedy, bloody good fun!

Here is a true story that classifies as "Tingler Trivia." At a major studio-named Cinema palace in San Mateo, California, I saw an original exhibition of "The Tingler" back in 1959 with the theatre-Manager's nephew, a high school chum. His uncle related the distribution set-up for the film: army surplus vibration motors were electrically wired under every third seat in the first seven rows of this large theatre in the "orchestra" level, at considerable expense. At key points in the film the motors were clicked on, providing a "tingling" sensation to a viewer's rear end, at which point several plain-clothed ushers would scream out horribly! The implied intention was to cause a stampede in the auditorium, front to rear, toward the main lobby candy counters beyond the thrust-open theatre doors. While we were listening to the story, behind the Manager's back a curious-looking workman, looking very worried and clutching a small hat, was gesturing for the manager to turn around, which we mentioned. "Who's that?" we asked. "Oh, he's the retired electrician I found" was the reply. "Excuse me for a moment, boys." When the Manager returned, he seemed quite bemused, explaining "This idiot I hired to do the work just informed me, minutes before the film rolls, that he forgot to ground his connections. It seems the patrons in those seven rows are due for a REAL shock." Needless to say, my friend and I sat in row 11 and yes, seeing the film that way, in a packed theatre, was a real hoot! About 100 people, jolted and non, stormed the lobby at the given moments, several screaming or wondering out loud in pandemonium. When the film went "black screen" for a moment and the jolts shocked the audience, the scene was not to be believed and has, to this very day, never been forgotten. It was almost as humorous as a showing of "House on Haunted Hill" in the same theatre earlier in the year, but that is a story for another day.

William Castle's 'The Tingler' is one of the most extraordinary horror movies ever made. Low budget, silly script, bad dialogue, uneven acting, gimmicky to the extreme (with or without "percepto"), but it STILL manages to amaze. It's a kind of trojan horse, being a cheesy b-grade thriller with a hidden core of surrealism almost worthy of Bunuel or Cocteau.

Memorable performances from horror legend Vincent Price as the scientist obsessed with explaining the strange phenomenon he labels "the tingler", and Judith Evelyn (who had a bit part in Hitchcock's 'Rear Window') as a bizarre deaf mute who owns a silent movie theatre, elevate this above most of Castle's overrated output. The classic acid trip scene (I think the first ever), the memorable short colour sequence, and the William Burroughs-like monster make this something really special. Not to be missed!