Saturday Screening: The Tingler
Directed by William Castle. US. 1959. NR. Running time: 82 min.
- Sat, Jul 12, 10:30 pm
This is a double feature with our 8:30pm screening of The Blob. One ticket gets you into both films. Tickets are $7 for adults, $6 for seniors, and $4 for members of the Colonial and children.
The Tingler was Castle's second and final film with Vincent Price, whose silky voice and acting grace had brought a little class to Castle's previous film, the gleefully disreputable House on Haunted Hill (1959). Price plays Dr. Warren Chapin, a part-time coroner and full time scientist pursuing a private inquiry into the power of fear in the human body. "There's a force in all of us which science knows nothing about," he explains. "That it's strong enough to shatter the spinal column we know, but what it is – what causes it to appear and disappear – that we don't know." With a few simple scares and some timely X-rays, Chapin proves that the human body hosts a parasite that feeds on fear (quick, rewrite the medical texts!). He theorizes that screaming is the only thing that can stop it (becoming an early champion of primal scream therapy in the process) and names it the "tingler," after the tingles one feels in a state of terror. (Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies)
Click here to continue reading Sean Axmaker's review.