The Tingler

Starring:Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts, Pamela Lincoln, Philip Coolidge, Dal McKennon, Richard Barthelmess, Ernest Torrence, Bob Gunderson
Director: William Castle
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Hokey and schlocky, "The Tingler" delivers!
Tingle away
Scream! Scream for your lives!
"I've been trying to scare myself, but nothing works."
The Tingler is what The Tingler is

The Tingler
Starring: Vincent Price , Judith Evelyn , Darryl Hickman , Patricia Cutts , and Pamela Lincoln
Director: William Castle
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

House of Wax
House on Haunted Hill
13 Ghosts
The Masque of the Red Death / The Premature Burial
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ASIN: B00000K3U3
Release Date: 1999-09-07

Customer Reviews:

Hokey and schlocky, "The Tingler" delivers!.......2007-02-07

At the writing of this review there were 38 other synopses of this film, "The Tingler". With that in mind, I won't waste the reader's time with another boring plot summary. Instead, let me just say that if the reader of this review is a fan of Vincent Price and especially, Director William Castle, then you will want to go get the "40th Anniversary" copy of this film. The extras, especially the short film on Castle, his films, and the promotional gimmicks that he used to sell them is great. But, back to this film....

"The Tingler" is one of those great old black and white films from the '50s that many Baby Boomers grew up with. Price is terrific as always and is surrounded with a solid cast of method actors. As mentioned by other reviewers, the "Tingler-animal"(?) is certainly hokey (and has it's exposed wires for propulsion in plain view), but that's ok. Castle's gimmick with "The Tingler" is called "Percepto" and unfortunately, viewers of the film won't get the effect that moviegoers got unless they want to hook themselves up to a battery or two. In theaters, "Percepto" was actually the act of hooking up movie seats with old motors that gave the viewer a small charge or vibration everytime someone screamed on the big screen.

The film does have a few actual thrills and chills throughout the movie. In particular, the "blood scene" used to scare one of the actors to death giving Price his chance to discover The Tingler is particularly memorable because the blood is colorized for the scene in brilliant scarlet.

RECOMMENDED FOR VINCENT PRICE AND WILLIAM CASTLE FANS, IN PARTICULAR!

Tingle away.......2006-08-20

William Castle was the king of gimmick horror, juicing up his sometimes-great-sometimes-really-hokey horror flicks with everything flying skeletons to two-tone glasses.

For "The Tingler," it was a buzzer in the seat called Percepto, which would be a shock to anyone watching the movie. The movie itself was a rather uneven but original idea, with Vincent Price playing a borderline doctor who discovers the very roots of human fear. It's entertaining, but has some big flaws.

Dr. Warren Chapin (Price) is performing autopsies at a local prison, where each dead man died in the electric chair -- and something crushed their spines. To further his research, he frightens his nasty wife and X-rays her, and finds something that appears when afraid, and vanishes when the victim screams. He tries taking acid to frighten himself, but the experiment fails.

Then the deaf-mute wife of an acquaintance is frightened to death by some ghastly visions, and Chapin extracts an enormous, centipede-like worm from her spine -- the "Tingler." After Chapin's wife almost kills him with it, he decides that some borders should never be crossed. But before he can return the Tingler to its dead host, it escapes.

All B-movie goodness, complete with a rubber worm and deliciously vitriolic dialogue. While the idea of a spinal parasite fed by fear is a really hokey idea, Castle plays it so straight that the audience doesn't really have an opening for scoffing. Like a good fantasy story, it creates its own reality.

Castle was at his best when he was doing nasty dialogue, and he's in good form here ("There's a word for you." "There's several for you!"). He builds up a sense of rising tension throughout the straightforward plot, which is only broken when the movie ends. And despite tubs of blood and giant worms, Castle also shows his talent for the understatedly creepy when Chapin takes acid.

In fact, "The Tingler" would be a great B-movie if it weren't for two very hokey scenes. One is of a black screen, with Price's voice exhorting, "The Tingler is in the theatre! Scream for your lives!" Very awkward. The other is the final scene, which makes absolutely no sense, and has nothing to do with what comes before it. I guess Castle just needed a shock ending.

It must have been nice for Price to play a non-villain for once -- his Chapin is obsessed and a little twisted, but he isn't insane or nasty, and by the last act he's realized that science isn't the end-all. Patricia Cutts and Philip Coolidge give good performances too, as David's toxic wife and as a sweaty theatre manager who isn't as timid as he seems to be.

"The Tingler" is a fairly entertaining cult horror movie, with good acting and a big rubber worm. If only it weren't for those two scenes.

Scream! Scream for your lives!.......2006-08-15

This is one of the best of the William Castle thrillers from the late 1950s through the early 1960s. Gimmick laden and full of fun, Castle films were always tongue in cheek and (nearly) always delivered.

"The Tingler" has always been one of my very favorites in the Castle stable from the first time I saw it on TV as a kid. Of course, it loses a little of its gimmick impact when watching the film on television because the climax happens in a theater. The screen goes black and patrons are encouraged, by the star of the film, Vincent Price, to scream for their lives. However, in later years I have been fortunate enough to see the film in a big theater with chairs wired for "shock" value and the result, I can tell you, is electrifying. But seeing this at home, on DVD does not really dampen the fun in the slightest way.

The script, though far fetched, is really imaginative and Price gives his performance as much gusto as he would any of his more prestigious rolls. The supporting cast, including Darryl Hickman, (Dobie Gillis' brother) are equally as good. There are also some wonderful (and colorful) surprises (in a B & W film) that I won't give away. The best thing about this DVD, however, is the fact that the print used for the transfer is excellent, much better than the poor quality of "The House On Haunted Hill" or "Day of the Triffids" offered on Netflix.

So purchase 'The Tingler" today and scream, scream for your lives!

"I've been trying to scare myself, but nothing works.".......2006-06-16

Perhaps the crown jewel in producer/director/huckster extraordinaire William Castle's catalog of films, The Tingler (1959) featured a couple of gimmicks, one of them he dubbed `Percepto'. The gag was he had an army surplus motor rigged up to some seats within the theater that was showing The Tingler, with a control button in the projectionist's room and at a certain point in the feature, the projectionist would push a button sending a mild, electrical shock to some unwitting patrons to give the impression the creature in the movie was actually skulking around in the theater...it was an expensive gag, one many theater owners weren't willing to shell out the bucks for, so it didn't see widespread use...I doubt something like this could be done today in our overly litigious society, but I sure would have loved to have been there back in the day to witness the spectacle that must have ensued. Produced and directed by Castle (House on Haunted Hill, Homicidal), and written by Robb White (House on Haunted Hill, 13 Ghosts), the film stars Vincent Price (The Fly, Scream and Scream Again, The Abominable Dr. Phibes) in the second of two features he made with Castle (the first was House on Haunted Hill). Also appearing is Darryl Hickman (Tea and Sympathy, The Iron Sheriff), Patricia Cutts (The Man Who Loved Redheads), Judith Evelyn (The Brothers Karamazov), Pamela Lincoln (Anatomy of a Psycho), and Philip Coolidge (The Mating Game, North by Northwest).

The movie opens with director Castle appearing on screen, issuing a warning to the audience that if they feel a tingly sensation, they should let out a scream as it just might save their lives. Now we see a prisoner being taken down a hallway, headed for the electric chair to be juiced up...after a dimming of the lights, we then see Dr. Warren Chapin (Price) preparing to perform an autopsy on the deceased. Prior to his starting, a man named Ollie Higgins (Coolidge) enters the room, stating he's the dead man's brother-in-law. During the autopsy Warren notes the dead man's vertebrae is cracked, a mysterious but not uncommon phenomena within people who die in fear, as if some unseen force were at work (Ollie gives it the name of The Tingler). Seems Warren, when not performing the occasional autopsy for the state, is engaging in experiments involving fear and postulates if enough fear tension is built up without being released (i.e. screaming), it might actually kill a person...Ollie wheedles a ride home from Warren, whom along with his creepy, bug-eyed, deaf-mute, germophobic wife Martha (Evelyn), run a movie theater specializing in old timey movies. Eventually Warren heads home and we meet his sister-in-law Lucy (Lincoln), who's dating his assistant David (Hickman). Turns out Warren's wife Isabel (Cutts), Lucy's older sister and guardian, doesn't approve of the relationship, specifically because she doesn't want Lucy to make the mistake she did involving herself with a scientist (she seems hardly one to be making judgments on others since she spends most of her time unfaithfully tramping around on her husband), and seeing as how she controls the purse strings, it creates a problem. Warren continues his experiments, convinced there's a physical entity present when someone is in a state of fear, one that grows along with the level of terror, but the problem is once the person screams, the entity disappears...what he really needs is someone who can't release their fear tension, thereby allowing the entity to grow...hmmm, sounds like Martha might fit the bill...

One of the things I like about William Castle, who tended to emulate Alfred Hitchcock, and this is entirely my own perception, is that the man seemed to have no illusions about what he was doing, or the films he was making. There aren't any attempts at grand, artistic statements here, only solid filmmaking with an eye towards entertaining audiences and making a few bucks in the process. I'm not saying he couldn't have been more than what he was (with his last film, Shanks, released in 1974, he seemed to go beyond a bit), but he knew his talents and capabilities, used what he had, the result being some of the more memorable B films of the time...again, that's just my impression after seeing a number of his later features, so I could be way off base. As far as The Tingler, apparently the idea for the story related in this movie came about after writer Robb White saw a worm-like prop intended to be used in the film House on Haunted Hill (1959). Also, I believe the financial success Castle saw from House on Haunted Hill allowed him to have the better than average production values for this film. The direction her is very strong, the performances solid, and the dialog sharp and sometimes witty. The story is actually fairly complex, as are a few of the characters, some of whom are interested in Warren's research for their own gain. I don't know what it is about Vincent Price and his characters, but it seems rare they ever have decent relationships with their wives, and here is no different...the benefit is it allows for some deliciously caustic exchanges including the following...

Isabel: There's a word for you.
Warren: There are several for you.

Along with this one...

Isabel: The only way Dave Morris will marry my sister is over my dead body.
Warren: Unconventional but not impossible.

As far as the creature itself it's black and looks like a cat-sized slug, sporting numerous legs and two, large antennae on one end. It's kinda hokey, but it works for the movie. While this is a black and white feature, there is an effective sequence that does use some color...I won't spoil it by going into detail, but it is one of the more interesting bits of the film. One of my favorite sequences is when Price's character, in an effort to scare himself enough to experience the effects of his own Tingler (seems everyone has one), doses himself with a whopping amount of acid, making this one of the first features to depict the drug's usage. As I said, the story is solid, but things do get a little weird by the end as Warren realizes his folly and tries to set things right. The quest for scientific discovery is important, but sometimes the end results are not worth the price.

The picture quality on this DVD release, presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), looks very sharp and clean, and the Dolby Digital audio comes through excellent. Extras include both English and Spanish audio tracks, a featurette titled `Scream for Your Lives', an original scream scene sequence with voice-over by Price, another scream scene sequence made for drive-ins with voice-over by Castle, subtitles in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai, liner notes on the insert, and a trailer for this film along for one for Night of the Living Dead (1990).

Cookieman108

Just a note, the scream scene sequences included as part of the extras involved another gimmick, one where, at a certain point in the movie, the film would be interrupted and audiences would hear Price's voice stating The Tingler is loose in the theater, and the patrons had to scream as loud as they could to avoid being the creature's next victim (the idea was to have a plant in the audience, one who would scream, faint, and subsequently have to be carried out of the theater). Castle, using his own voice, created a similar voice-over for the drive-in crowd.

The Tingler is what The Tingler is.......2006-02-20

Okay, I gave 5 stars to The Tingler... am I morbid? No, I'm judging the DVD against what I expected. It is better than I expected! I realized when I ordered The Tingler that it wasn't to be confused with Casablanca, but it was the film I remember from my childhood watched on "Fright Night" on WDRD Channel 41 in Louisville, Kentucky. The DVD doesn't disappoint! It has extra features on Willam Castle and neat little bits demonstrating the different cuts created for hardtop and drive-in theaters... totally cool!

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