The Tingler
USA 1959
Written by Robb White
Directed by William Castle
Watched on 23.09.2017

For their special screening of “The Tingler” (one of the three films out of the program which were chosen by John Waters), the /slash-crew really went all the way. They recreated the experience as it was intended by William Castle, not only using the “percepto”-device in selected rows, but also having a shill who started to scream during the screening, which made them halt the movie and bring in a couple of doctors to get her out. Which really made this one of the best and most special and memorable /slash-screenings that I’ve ever attended. Awesome! However, I also liked the movie itself, even if it’s rather dated. I mean, yes, obviously, the entire idea of the tingler was ludicrous, and completely bonkers – but in such a charming way that I simply couldn’t fault the movie for it. It definitely helps that I have a soft spot for black and white-films, and old (practical) effects, thus I also really liked all the scenes with the tingler itself (which looked remarkably like the Ceti Alpha-eels from “Star Trek II”; seems they were quite inspired by “The Tingler”), even though you could see the strings on which it was propelled forward. The few scenes with color in an otherwise black and white picture (like red blood) were awesome, too. I’m also a huge fan of Vincent Price, and as usual, found him absolutely awesome in this. I also really enjoyed the highly dysfunctional relationships of both married couples; especially Warren and Martha had a couple of great scenes and lines. The writing in general was pretty good. And there were many funny moments, many of them intentionally, some of them unintentionally – but, again, the movie was much too charming to hold that against it. Overall, I had a great time with “The Tingler”, and found it to be very entertaining.
8/10 for the film, 10/10 for the /slash-experience.

IMDB