"Ghastly Beyond Belief!"
A pathologist experiments with a deaf-mute woman who is unable to scream to prove that humans die of fright due to an organism he names The Tingler that lives within each person on the spinal cord and is suppressed only when people scream when scared.
Vincent Price
Dr. Warren Chapin
Philip Coolidge
Oliver 'Ollie' Higgins
Judith Evelyn
Mrs. Martha Ryerson Higgins
Darryl Hickman
David Morris
Pamela Lincoln
Lucy Stevens
Patricia Cutts
Isabel Stevens Chapin
William Castle
Prologue Host (uncredited)
Bob Gunderson
Ryerson - Screaming Convict (uncredited)
Dal McKennon
Projectionist (uncredited)
A pathologist experiments with a deaf-mute woman who is unable to scream to prove that humans die of fright due to an organism he names The Tingler that lives within each person on the spinal cord and is suppressed only when people scream when scared.
William Castle was a master showman and this was his grandest triumph. He loved a gimmick, in this case Percepto, a device fitted beneath theater seats to enhance the climactic scenes by giving the patrons a short, sharp shock! Vincent Price, at his most maniacally deluded, is a pathologist who says he has discovered fear produces an actual physical creature that only be overcome by the release of a scream. He hopes to get his hands on someone who has died of fright to test his theory and this proves simpler than one might think, thanks to the company he keeps. It is a mad, nightmare of a horror that hurtles through scenes of capital punishment, a bad LSD trip (first time on film), an unfaithful wife, a silent movie theater (showing Tol'Able David, a true classic), younf love and a cheap looking monster. Even though the story is patently absurd, this is a fun-filled thrill ride, even without the threat of an electric jolt!
There's something to be said about line delivery in horror movies when the lines aren't panicked and screaming, but understated and build tension rather than relieve it. The conceit of this plot is ludicrous, of course, but it is fifties surrealism and it has a meta concept to it, which is very weird and rewarding. The movie is quite a little gem for its genre and I highly recommend it.
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