"The Tingler"(1959)d/William Castle

Though we're a month late for official Vincentennial celebrations(you never met me in St Louie, ya mamaluccos), covering campy cult classics starring the late genre king is never untimely, especially when they're produced and directed by the legendary showman William Castle, who dusted off one of his greatest theatrical gimmicks for the film, in "Percepto!", where he had certain seats in larger theaters wired up with small buzzers from leftover WW2 surplus that vibrated upon cue from the projectionist when the titular Tingler breaks loose in the film.In some instances, Castle even hired planted moviegoers who'd faint and scream, and even faux nurses and ambulances to gurney off the phony vertiginous victims.The uncredited actor portraying the projectionist was Dal McKennon, the voice of familiar green claymation icon, Gumby.The movie, released as a 40th Anniversary Special Edition dvd in 1999, also boasts of an ahead-of-it's-time color sequence, a wonderfully rotten rubber spinal loberstail/centipede combo creature, and Vincent Price trippin' face on acid.Really, how fucking great is that?

Trippin' balls, Dr. Chapin(Vincent Price) suddenly gets The Strawberry Alarm Clock.
After a historic three screaming disembodied head prologue by Castle himself, we're introduced to Dr. Warren Chapin(Vincent Price), on hand to perform the autopsy for a state execution by electric chair; a sideline for pathological studies into the very nature of fear itself.While cracking open the ex-convict up like a gruesome pistacchio in front of the man's brother-in-law, Ollie(Philip Coolidge), Chapin discovers vertebrae that have been pulverized by tremendous pressure, which the good doctor surmises must have originated in the power of fear.Makes sense.After driving him home to the movie theater he helps his deaf mute wife run, the doctor accidentally cuts himself which sends Martha(Judith Evelyn), unable to scream and release her expression of hemophobia, into a psychosomatic coma.He revives the theater's owner/moneyhandler, who immediately rushes to the safe nearby, ensuring her money is still all there.Oh, it's one of those marriages.Suffering a toxic union of his own, Chapin's wife Isabel(Patricia Cutts) is a philandering floozie who not only conspires against her sister Lucy(Pamela Lincoln) and her main squeeze David(Darryl Hickman), who works as Warren's lab assistant, but also poisoned her pops for her legacy.After peeping the bold bitch's latest indiscretion tangling tongues with her in the street, Chapin puts a hot lead one in Isabel's labonza, afterwards throwing her on an x-ray slab and exposing a few plates.He then revives her, revealing that he merely plugged her with blanks as part of his latest research experiment.The frazzled harlot remarks that when she turns the tables on her husband, it won't be an experiment.Whoa.The next day, Warren shows David the photographic fruit of his labors, evidence of a creepy-crawlie that exists in all human spinal columns, absorbing fear and growing along the vertebrae, only shrinking back to its original microscopic size when the feeling subsides.Chapin proudly remarks that he's dubbed the beastie, "Tingler"(how scientific!).

"Forty bucks worth of hardshell Maine lobstertail!Papa's chowin' like an Ottoman suzerain tonight!"
To further research his findings, Chapin jabs himself with 100 micrograms of a new experimental drug, lysergic acid diethylimide 25(sigh....cue the stomach butterflies of love), cartoonishly freaks out on a bad trip, screams like a girl, and passes the fuck out.Later he gives Ollie a script for sleepers for his troubled mate, who comes off her dose only to see self-opening and closing windows and doors, a disfigured fiend with obligatory shiv in her bed, and in the bathroom, a tub full of claret from which an arm rises ominously.The mute, unable to scream and pushed to the brink, collapses dead.Ever the opportunist, Warren hurriedly autopsies the bitch, extricating the fear-eater which overpowers the doctor, wrapping its pincers around his arm until his pain-laden yelp freezes the thing.Isabel, confessing she's been unworthy, suggests a celebratory drink to his astounding find, that contains a mickey her husband ironically drinks after switching glasses with her as a safeguard against just that.She unleashes the "Tingler" on his throat, but Lucy arrives screamingly before the scare-sucking lobster can kill him.Warren, unwilling to further play God after discovering the creature is virtually indestructible, decides to replace the "Tingler" in Martha's corpse from whence it came...only Ollie hasn't contacted the authorities or a funeral parlor as of yet.Chapin stumbles in on him as he's packing for an abrupt get-outski,and while confronting him about his criminality, the "Tingler" breaks loose from its steel box and into a packed theater.Cue:Percepto.Warren announces to the audience:"The Tingler is loose in the theater! Scream! Scream for your lives!"as the screen goes dark amidst ad libs from the crowd.The chill-chewing crustacean latches onto the projectionist whose scream immobilizes it long enough for Chapin to subdue it and place it back into Martha's dead body before he leaves to alert the authorities.Ollie tries to make a break for it, but his attempt is met by windows and doors slamming shut on their own, and the shrouded corpse of his dead wife rising from the table and walking towards him, his face twisted into an inaudible scream...

Martha(Judith Evelyn) regrets her thrifty switch to Mr. Plasma from Mr. Bubble.
Despite the obvious stretches-in-basic biological principles this classic's plot be-nudgingly asks the viewer to accept with or without sodium chloride, this, like most of Castle's work during his period of theatrical carny exploits, is highly enjoyable fluff of the campiest order.Price, as always, purveys more emotion with his eyes alone than a dozen of Hollywood's current upper eschelon could with full bodies.Revisiting movies like this only reinforce what an irreplaceable force he was on the silver screen.As a memorial to genre icons like Castle and Price, Tingler is a must for the shelves of horror fans of any generation to enjoy, and well-deserving of the three wops it receives on the rating scale.Highly recommended.

Insert comic book scream here.You know, something like..."YEEEEEAAAAARRRGHHHH!!!"