Early William Castle horror gimmick film with Vincent Price. Price plays Dr. Warren Chapin a pathologist who has developed a theory that extreme fear in humans manifests as a physical creature he calls 'The Tingler', that attaches its self to the spine which it is capable of breaking should its host be unable to release its tension through screaming, once the host screams however the 'The Tingler' dissolves into nothingness. Eager to prove his theory Dr. Chapin conducts an ethically wanting experiment on a deaf mute women, a 'Tingler' is brought into being and kills her. Because she did not scream the 'Tingler' continues to exist, proves nearly indestructible and gets lose. The highlight of the film on its original release was a scene in with 'The Tingler' getting lose in a movie theater, Castle had little joy buzzers attached to seemingly random seats in the theaters which were activated during that scene to create a surprise 'tingling' sensation for unlucky audience members. Sometimes this effect would be heightened by having paid actors scream in the theater during that sequence.
A ridicules movie really, it holds together surprisingly well, the actors play things straight and once the silly rules of the movie are established, they are never deviated from. There is even a pretty good twist thrown in near the end that I really didn't see coming, Castle's track record with his movie twists compares well with M. Night Shymalan's, I'd say they both work about half the time. The Tingler is a strange, enjoyable movie that works better then you might expect. ***
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment