The Tingler
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.29 You Save: $5.70 (57%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.89 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Tingler
Movie Review: Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
The classic movies are some of the best! I really enjoy any work by Vincent Price!Movie Review: Scream for your lives
Summary: 3 Stars
William Castle was the king of gimmick horror, juicing up his sometimes-great-sometimes-really-hokey horror flicks with everything flying skeletons to two-tone glasses.
For "The Tingler," it was a buzzer in the seat called Percepto, which would be a shock to anyone watching the movie. The movie itself was a rather uneven but original idea, with Vincent Price playing a borderline doctor who discovers the very roots of human fear. It's entertaining, but has some big flaws.
Dr. Warren Chapin (Price) is performing autopsies at a local prison, where each dead man died in the electric chair -- and something crushed their spines. To further his research, he frightens his nasty wife and X-rays her, and finds something that appears when afraid, and vanishes when the victim screams. He tries taking acid to frighten himself, but the experiment fails.
Then the deaf-mute wife of an acquaintance is frightened to death by some ghastly visions, and Chapin extracts an enormous, centipede-like worm from her spine -- the "Tingler." After Chapin's wife almost kills him with it, he decides that some borders should never be crossed. But before he can return the Tingler to its dead host, it escapes.
All B-movie goodness, complete with a rubber worm and deliciously vitriolic dialogue. While the idea of a spinal parasite fed by fear is a really hokey idea, Castle plays it so straight that the audience doesn't really have an opening for scoffing. Like a good fantasy story, it creates its own reality.
Castle was at his best when he was doing nasty dialogue, and he's in good form here ("There's a word for you." "There's several for you!"). He builds up a sense of rising tension throughout the straightforward plot, which is only broken when the movie ends. And despite tubs of blood and giant worms, Castle also shows his talent for the understatedly creepy when Chapin takes acid.
In fact, "The Tingler" would be a great B-movie if it weren't for two very hokey scenes. One is of a black screen, with Price's voice exhorting, "The Tingler is in the theatre! Scream for your lives!" Very awkward. The other is the final scene, which makes absolutely no sense, and has nothing to do with what comes before it. I guess Castle just needed a shock ending.
It must have been nice for Price to play a non-villain for once -- his Chapin is obsessed and a little twisted, but he isn't insane or nasty, and by the last act he's realized that science isn't the end-all. Patricia Cutts and Philip Coolidge give good performances too, as David's toxic wife and as a sweaty theatre manager who isn't as timid as he seems to be.
"The Tingler" is a fairly entertaining cult horror movie, with good acting and a big rubber worm. If only it weren't for those two scenes.
Movie Review: It coulda been a contender!!!
Summary: 3 Stars
A neat idea with a great deal of potential in the story line, but sadly, after a great start, this film just falls flat. Price, as usual, is great in his role (which was no doubt written for him).
My problem is that there's just too much that's not developed in this tale. Price's nasty wife should have been "tingled"! There's this build up where she makes Price a cuckold--she even tries to "tingle" him. But she just fades out of the story line without paying the Price, thus leaving us without any sense of poetic justice.
Ditto, the lack of development concerning Price's attractive sister-in-law and her beau. What kinda 50s horror flick doesn't put a pretty lass in danger and have her boyfriend come to the rescue? This one!! Neither character is fleshed out nor do they play any sort key role in the film. They're just there!
The shame of it is that this film clocks in at not much over an hour, so they certainly weren't pressed for time. About halfway through the movie you get the strong sense that they just wanted to get it finished and put it in the can.
Still there are some tense and indeed horrific moments---partiularly when the movie operator's wife gets the scare of her life.
Entertaining, but it could have been a classic!
Movie Review: THE TINGLER (1959, William Castle)
Summary: 3 Stars
This low-budget cheapie from schlockmeister film director William Castle features an over-the-top Vincent Price playing a borderline nutcase who meets his match without realizing it. Castle had gimmicks in the theaters his films ran first-run, and THE TINGLER is built entirely around those gimmicks. While it's undeniably trash, the film has a few things going for it. Having the creepie-crawlie trying to get its victim by the throat, only to drop off when the victim starts screaming, is clever. The use of LSD (not named but it's not hard to figure out) as a personal medical experiment is ahead of its time. Best of all, the deaf and dumb woman played by Judith Evelyn is genuinely eerie. She's so strange (almost looks possessed) that while she's on-screen, you can suspend your disbelief. Her performance is head and shoulders above anything else Castle filmed (that I've seen, at least).Movie Review: A Forgotten Cinema Classic
Summary: 3 Stars
They just don't make 'em like this anymore. A forgotten cinema classic. Vincent Price is absolutely fantastic, somehow he manages to hold his head high even when facing adversity...like being given this movie script. The rest of the cast are woeful, the "special effects" are laughable, the plot (yes it has one) is totally implausible - what's not to like! It's a hoot. If you love bad cinema this one is an absolute gem.