Director William Castle and screenwriter Robb White know how to tell a story. However, they never chanced a narrative mishap spoiling potential box office returns because they used gimmicks during the screening of their films in order to creative notoriety for the production. It worked. From issuing life insurance polices for viewers who might die of fright to planting audience members who would faint and be rushed off by awaiting paramedics, Castle-White productions promised a spectacle. The Tingler provided such trademark thrills but White also stumbled upon few ideas of historical significance along the way.
Doctor Warren Chapin (Vincent Price) is a paleontologist who is studying the effects of fear. He has devised a theory that fear is a physical entity which manifests itself in the spinal column and only dissipates upon the person’s emotional release of his or her anxiety, typically in the form of screaming. He deduces that the only manner in which to capture this manifestation, which he dubs “The Tingler,” is to utilize Martha Higgins (Judith Evelyn), the deaf-mute wife of a local theater owner named Oliver “Ollie” (Philip Coolidge), because she is the only person he knows who cannot mitigate her fright via screaming. Predictably, Martha dies as a consequence and Warren extracts the Tingler from her, a millipede-like creature reminiscent of Cronenberg’s fornicating spine in Naked Lunch. The Tingler escapes and chaos ensues.
First and foremost, Castle implemented the “Percepto” gimmick for this film. (Actually, the Tingler creature is modeled after an animal called a Peripatus, thus the device’s moniker.) Whenever heightened moments involving fear appears onscreen, buzzers connected to various seats (one out of every ten) in select theaters would provide a mild jolt to its occupant. To ensure that Percepto wasn’t viewed as a mere one trick pony, Castle also hired people to sit in the audience and scream on cue as well as pass out before the house lights went up and paramedics appeared to carry off the victim.
However, The Tingler did many things aside from perpetuate Castle’s proclivity for publicity stunts. There is an inspired plot twist which forces the viewer to quickly reassess one’s preliminary evaluation of Warren. Yet the most interesting aspect of the film is that White has the Tingler escape into a packed movie theater. As we watch the chaos and fear of those in the onscreen audience, the screen goes white as the outline of the Tingler, which has reached the projection booth, appears as it shuffles across the lens. Warren/Price is then advises the actual audience to scream in order to paralyze the creature as Percepto goes off. Thus, advertently or no, White catapults his work into meta-cinema and postmodernism. Furthermore, and also of historical note, is the premise of a person studying the nature of fear and fright a year before Peeping Tom would premier overseas in Britain atop depicting the first instance of an LSD trip onscreen.
Yet there is the trademark aesthetic gratuity that is signature Castle. The film, which was released a few months after Castle’s House on Haunted Hill, opens with a barrage of floating heads. Also, the film exploits the fact that the advent of color in cinema severed as a jolt for the horror genre in that blood could now be presented in all its visceral glory. The Tingler was shot in black and white but Castle intersects midway through with two scenes where blood flows from facets and bathtubs threaten to overflow vivid red.
Hands down, the film is a pleasure and, after discussing the film with others, we all agreed that we were born too late to truly enjoy the theatrical experience of this production (the film in conjunction with Percepto). Castle does it once again with providing us with an unnerving premise, a great performance from Price, a few ideas to play around with, and a good time overall.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
