The Tingler

1959's THE TINGLER is one of director William Castle's best known filmed gimmicks, its opening minutes featuring with the director himself providing some warnings about the film we're going to experience.  Damn, I wish I could've seen this in a theater.  To have been one of the lucky filmgoers jolted in his seat by "Percepto", a vibrating device.  To sit near one of those who were hired to scream at key moments.  You might write off Castle as merely a carnival barker but his films were pretty good.  Of what I've seen of his filmography at the time of this writing, THE TINGLER is my favorite.  This is the expected campy terror with long winded scientific explanations, and never less than great fun.

The marvelous Vincent Price plays Dr. Warren Chapin, a forensic pathologist who believes that within each of us is some kind of creature or parasite that causes our spines to tingle when we experience fear.  It can kill us, unless we start screaming, thereby weakening the mysterious "tingler".  When Dr. Chapin meets the mute wife of an acquaintance, a hypothesis forms - if someone has no vocal cords and therefore unable to scream, will the tingler overtake them?   How can Chapin test this? It leads to a curious scene followed by several more curious scenes, taking us in directions we may not have anticipated.

Robb White's script is filled with creative ideas, and Castle delivers on the film's intriguing premise quite nicely.  THE TINGLER is surprisingly layered, with interesting commentary on matrimony and the state of independent movie theaters in the late '50s.  Of course, also the notion of fooling Mother Nature/playing God.  As you can see from the above .gif, Chapin does eventually come face to face with the tingler, a centipede like horror that must have been the pride of the prop department.  Prior, he trips on LSD in a scene of great emoting by dear Mr. Price.  He is so perfect here, whether calmly administering medical care or trading acid retorts with his unfaithful wife.

THE TINGLER has one major shortcoming - how Chapin's wife Isabel (Patricia Cutts) reacts to a particularly menacing situation and how she exits the film reeks of lazy writing.  Her character is cunning and does have some good moments, but I feel she should've been more involved in the climax, though as it is it is quite satisfying.