The Tingler<\/em><\/a> was one of a long line of gimmick films released as Hollywood battled for audiences in the post WWII years.\u00a0 Faced with the challenge posed by television, Hollywood sought to give audiences something that they couldn\u2019t get at home.\u00a0 They tried widescreen, stereo sound, color and 3D.\u00a0 But director William Castle went further; he created \u201cPercepto!\u201d<\/p>\nEven without \u201cPercepto!\u201d, The Tingler is an odd horror film.\u00a0 The plot revolves around a pathologist, Dr. Chapman (Vincent Price) who discovers that people\u2019s fear causes a tiny organism to grow along the spine.\u00a0 If unchecked by the victim\u2019s screams, this creature can become strong enough to kill its host!\u00a0 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\u2026 well, you have a mess.\u00a0 Thankfully the mess is so funny that the film falls completely into the realms of the guilty pleasure.<\/p>\n
So what was \u201cPercepto!\u201d?\u00a0 It was a trick designed by Castle to bring the audience right into the film. \u00a0In an attempt to one-up the flying skeleton he had flown over audience\u2019s heads during House on Haunted Hill (1959), Castle had electric buzzers fitted to random seats within the movie theater.\u00a0\u00a0 When the Tingler itself finally appeared the buzzers would be activated with the aim of giving the occupants of the seats a fright.\u00a0 The effect was compounded with planted \u2018screamers\u2019 in the audience, employed to ensure the crowd played along and \u2018screamed for their lives\u2019 when the Tingler escaped into an on-screen theater.
\nAlthough we can\u2019t get the same experience on DVD (much to my disappointment the film has never warranted a special release with a \u201cHome Percepto!\u201d setup), we can still enjoy other tricks employed by Castle.\u00a0 One of the most spectacular is a brief scene involving color.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The effect, apparently achieved by painting the set (and actress!) grey and filming the sequence in color) is quite brilliant.<\/p>\n
The same really can\u2019t be said for the rest of the film I\u2019m afraid.\u00a0 Although the script contains some amusingly acerbic lines, the ridiculous plot doesn\u2019t really give it much to play with.\u00a0 The acting is hammy at best and downright terrible at worst.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Her pantomimic exaggerations really do give her stage background away.\u00a0 Worst of all is the titular Tingler.\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n
But for all its failings, I love The Tingler.\u00a0 It crosses that \u2018so-bad-its good\u2019 line with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek.\u00a0 There are no pretensions here \u2013 the film is a vehicle for a gimmick and it knows it.\u00a0 It is as silly as it sounds and there is nothing wrong with that.\u00a0 Now hurry up and give me a 50th anniversary special with seat buzzers, damnit!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Richard Feilden.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Faced with the challenge posed by television, Hollywood sought to give audiences something that they couldn\u2019t get at home.\u00a0 They tried widescreen, stereo sound, color and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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