Movie Review: The Tingler (1959)

Produced and directed by William Castle, the king of gimmick cinema, The Tingler has an interesting premise for star Vincent Price to work with.

Price plays Dr. Warren Chapin, a man who discovers something growing inside people’s spines when they experience fear. The body does have a natural defense mechanism for this, though: screaming. When you scream, you keep the Tingler from growing.

The movie shows us an experiment on a mute woman who cannot scream, as she’s given drugs and has a nasty trip.

While the film is in black and white, this creative sequence utilizes color in parts. It’s a reasonably disturbing scene, even in 2019. Sure, this movie may largely be pretty tongue-in-cheek, but scenes like this definitely work. It’s a lot like House on Haunted Hill — another campy movie produced and directed by Castle, which manages to have one of the most effective jump scares in all of film, I’d say.

When the Tingler is out and about, it’s as campy as you’d expect.