"The Tingler"*** (out of ****)
Beware! Your spine will start to tingle as you watch "The Tingler" (1959)!
"The Tingler" opens with an appearance from the movie's director, William Castle, who offers a warning to the "sensitive people" about to watch the movie. They may feel what the actors on-screen are feeling. As a defense, Castle informs the audience, they must scream in order to gain relief. "A scream at the right time may save your life" he declares.
This of course sets up anticipation for "percepto", perhaps the greatest marketing gimmick in the history of motion pictures. An electrical buzzer attached to random seats in a movie theatre, that at the right cue, would cause the seat to vibrate, creating the sensation they also have a "tingler" inside them.
That should tell you everything you need to know about this movie. "The Tingler" and William Castle don't have high ambitions. Castle is more interested in cheap, sensationalist entertainment. This is not a movie to be taken seriously. Some may counter argue, can you really take a plot like this serious? The answer is yes. I'm of the opinion most subject matters can be made into good movies, if you treat the story in a thoughtful manner and film it according to its plot (i.e. if it is a horror movie, create atmosphere, play with lighting and shadows).
As such we have to put our lofty ideas aside of what might have been and focus on what is. To that extent "The Tingler" works within the parameters it has established. This is a "fun campy movie". It sets the bar low enough where adequacy is elevated. In other words, if Ingmar Bergman had directed this, we'd have laughed him out of Sweden.
Vincent Price stars as Dr. Warren Chapin. A pathologist who works at a state prison, performing autopsies on convicts sent to the electric chair. During one autopsy, a relative of the deceased is present. Chapin notices the convict's spine is crushed and begins to explain his ideas of fear's impact on the body. Having spent much time researching the topic, Chapin believes a parasite exists inside our bodies that literally takes hold of our spine when we are in a state of fear. This would explain the condition of the spine.
Chapin ends up befriending the relative, Ollie Higgins (Philip Coolidge), and drives him home. There he learns Ollie runs a movie theatre, that only screens silent movies, along with this wife, Martha (Judith Evelyn), who is deaf and mute. Martha is of great interest to Chapin because of her inability to scream. How is she able to release her fear? The parasite, the tingler, physically grows when we are afraid and weakens when we scream. If only Martha would die of fright, Chapin could perform an autopsy on her to prove his theory.
Because of his research, Chapin is a neglectful husband and is in a loveless marriage with Isabel (Patricia Cutts). She has taken on lovers and does a poor job of hiding it from Chapin, who doesn't really seem fazed at all. Living with them is Isabel's younger sister, Lucy (Pamela Lincoln), who is in love with Chapin's partner, Dave (Darryl Hickman).
Through circumstances better left unexplained, Chapin is able to prove his theory of the existence of a "tingler", which looks like a giant centipede.
The campy nature of the movie really kicks into high gear during a sequence in a movie theatre as the tingler roams free. The movie fades to black at times as Price does a narration trying to soothe the audience (the ones in the movie as well as those watching in a theatre) to remain calm. At other times he orders the audience to scream. It will be the only way to weaken the tingler and capture it. One can imagine this is the sequence where the vibrating seats came into play.
Having proved there is a tingler, we must ask, what is this movie trying to tell us? Because of the unintended consequences of this discovery, the movie makes an anti-science commentary. Chapin is willing to engage in questionable acts in the name of science. Horror movies of the 1930s offered similar warnings against science and the commentary emerged once again in the aftermath of WWII and sci-fi of the 1950s. Price even starred in one of these movies, "The Fly" (1958). Science meddles too much in society, dangerously seeking to answer questions which should be left alone. Curiosity is not a good thing.
The two marriages shown in the movie aren't happy ones and end in ways we wouldn't expect the production code would allow. What impression does that leave us with? Is this a rebuke of 1950s domestic tranquility?
For a campy movie a lot of the performances are good. The weakest performance may belong to Darryl Hickman and Pamela Lincoln may have been given the worst dialogue. Vincent Price on the other hand, as usual, is immensely entertaining and watchable. Sometimes you get the impression Price believes he is doing Shakespeare. He is so committed to the character. Other times he is over acting, putting on a performance for those sitting in the balcony.
Although today audiences may think of Price as a ham actor starring in horror movies from the 1950s and 60s, he started his career as a serious actor appearing in well respected movies; "The Song of Bernadette" (1943), "Leave Her To Heaven" (1945) and "Shock" (1946).
William Castle on the other hand had always been associated with "B" movies and always invented a gimmick for each movie. He primarily worked in the thriller and horror genre. "The Tingler" and "House on Haunted Hill" (1959), which Price also stars in, are probably his best known movies.
"The Tingler" can be fun to watch, if you are in the right mood. It may not scare you but there will most likely be some unintended laughs. I can only imagine how teenagers will react to the scene where Price drops acid (!). If you enjoy this, check out "House on Haunted Hill", which I prefer.
Posts
