The Tingler (William Castle, 1959): USA

Reviewed by Richard Feilden.  Viewed on DVD.

The Tingler was one of a long line of gimmick films released as Hollywood battled for audiences in the post WWII years.  Faced with the challenge posed by television, Hollywood sought to give audiences something that they couldn’t get at home.  They tried widescreen, stereo sound, color and 3D.  But director William Castle went further; he created “Percepto!”

Even without “Percepto!”, The Tingler is an odd horror film.  The plot revolves around a pathologist, Dr. Chapman (Vincent Price) who discovers that people’s fear causes a tiny organism to grow along the spine.  If unchecked by the victim’s screams, this creature can become strong enough to kill its host!  Throw into the mix an unfaithful wife, an eager lab assistant, a deaf-mute theater owner and the first LSD trip depicted on film and you have… well, you have a mess.  Thankfully the mess is so funny that the film falls completely into the realms of the guilty pleasure.

So what was “Percepto!”?  It was a trick designed by Castle to bring the audience right into the film.  In an attempt to one-up the flying skeleton he had flown over audience’s heads during House on Haunted Hill (1959), Castle had electric buzzers fitted to random seats within the movie theater.   When the Tingler itself finally appeared the buzzers would be activated with the aim of giving the occupants of the seats a fright.  The effect was compounded with planted ‘screamers’ in the audience, employed to ensure the crowd played along and ‘screamed for their lives’ when the Tingler escaped into an on-screen theater.
Although we can’t get the same experience on DVD (much to my disappointment the film has never warranted a special release with a “Home Percepto!” setup), we can still enjoy other tricks employed by Castle.  One of the most spectacular is a brief scene involving color.  It is still quite startling to see the sudden burst of crimson as the poor deaf-mute woman turns on a faucet, only to be greeted by cascade of blood.  The effect, apparently achieved by painting the set (and actress!) grey and filming the sequence in color) is quite brilliant.

The same really can’t be said for the rest of the film I’m afraid.  Although the script contains some amusingly acerbic lines, the ridiculous plot doesn’t really give it much to play with.  The acting is hammy at best and downright terrible at worst.  In particular Judith Evelyn seems to have decided that, given that her character lives in a silent world, she should play as though the entire film were silent.  Her pantomimic exaggerations really do give her stage background away.  Worst of all is the titular Tingler.  Looking like an overgrown centipede, the strings on the rubber creation can be seen at several moments in the film and at one point, it actually seems to gain psychic powers, bending its cage walls without being anywhere near them!

But for all its failings, I love The Tingler.  It crosses that ‘so-bad-its good’ line with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek.  There are no pretensions here – the film is a vehicle for a gimmick and it knows it.  It is as silly as it sounds and there is nothing wrong with that.  Now hurry up and give me a 50th anniversary special with seat buzzers, damnit!