The Tingler (1959)


William Castle was a great showman, but unfortunately this always outshined the fact he was a pretty decent director as well.  The Tingler is most remembered for its "Percepto" gimmick of putting buzzers in the seats, something that is often replicated when the movie is given in-theater showings these days.  Unlike in the past they seem to work a bit better and not put theatergoers at risk, but it is still what people show up for when coming to see this movie.  What they don't expect is for it to be any good, which is where the real surprise comes in. 

Dr. Warren Chapin (Vincent Price) is a pathologist who, along with his young assistant David (Darryl Hickman), has been searching for the answers to why people die of fear.  He has noticed that often people who have been frightened before death show damage to their spinal column.  He develops a theory that it may be some sort of unknown organism and, when discussing it with a theater owner named Ollie (Philip Coolidge), comes up with a name for it: the Tingler, as in being responsible for the spine tingling sensation one gets when afraid. 

Ollie's wife Martha (Judith Evelyn) is a deaf mute, which, after an experiment with LSD to see if Warren could frighten himself enough to produce a living specimen of the Tingler, turns out to be a more suitable subject.  Since screams disable the creature her inability to do so means that it should be intact upon her death, and Warren's theory turns out to be correct.  Unfortunately, his wife Isabel (Patricia Cutts) takes the opportunity of his discovery to drug him and split, which leads Warren to almost being killed by the creature when it breaks out of its case.  Too late, Warren starts realizing the type of creature he unleashed upon the world.

Like most William Castle productions this was made without much of a budget, which is evident in the Tingler itself.  Made to look like a giant velvet worm, the creature is an obvious rubber mock-up with some petroleum jelly to make it look slimy.  It's pulled along by wires and there was no effort put in to making it able to properly move.  The good thing is, although it leads to the movie being a bit talky and slow-paced in places, the Tingler itself doesn't show up until near the end.  It is less about how good the creature looks than about the fun of having a cinema full of screaming teenagers as their seats buzzed as they went along with the encouraged interaction with the film, which unfortunately doesn't have the same effect when watching it at home.

Despite the usual disappointment in the creature, something one gets used to with most movies from the 1950s, the movie has some rather striking scenes when Warren slips Martha some LSD in order to produce the Tingler.  Blood flowing from a sink and filling a bathtub with a hand coming out the mess, all the while the red contrasting with the black and white of the rest of the movie, is more memorable than the Tingler itself.  It was a difficult trick to pull off in 1959, but Castle did so with using a black and white set and filming most of the scene in color and splicing it in, by hand on most prints, with the regular movie.  

As always Vincent Price is better in the role than he ought to be and Robb White's writing, though he comes up with convoluted ways of getting rid of one's spouse, quite amusing.  The sparring between Warren and Isabel, leading to the confirmation of the existence of the creature, is one of the highlights.  There are subplots everywhere in this film, most of them being more interesting than the actual monster.  Also, the whole idea of a symbiotic creature that manifests due to fear and is diminished by screaming is rather inventive even if its goal was merely to sell tickets.

In the hands of most other directors of the time this would have been a passable horror flick.  However, Castle imbues it with a sense of fun, and Price was always happy to oblige.  Judith Evelyn is a highlight in her role, Patricia Cutts is enjoyably evil and everyone else seems to know what type of movie they are in.  No one seems like they feel they are slumming and, despite all the bad directions this could have gone in, Castle made one of the most enjoyable creature features of the time.

The Tingler (1959)
Time: 82 minutes
Starring: Vincent Price, Philip Coolidge, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts, Judith Evelyn, Pamela Lincoln
Director: William Castle
 

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