Review: The Tingler (1959)

This is one of the better 50s B-movies I've seen out there. It stars Vincent Price, and is directed by the director of the original House on Haunted Hill, William Castle. It is about a scientist who does studies in fear and his discovery: a creature that lives inside us, connected to our spines. It is called the Tingler, because it causes the tingly feeling when you're afraid, and it grows in size during moments of fear to the point where it can kill someone, but shrinks or dies when you scream. Price's character eventually does tests with LSD to try to coax the Tingler within him, but he fails because of the massive amounts of pain and fear inside of him caused by the Tingler cause him to scream. However, a man who Price meets early in the film has a deaf-mute wife, who after meeting with Price's character, dies from fright apparently caused by LSD. The man brings the wife to Price, who is able to extract the Tingler. Things happen, and the Tingler escapes after Price brings it back to the man to have it put back where it came from because its indestructible. He is able to put it back into the wife's body and discovers the husband was the one who terrified her to death by forcing her out of the bedroom and into the bathroom where she died.

All in all, this is a very good movie. Price does a good job playing a scientist who will stop at nothing to discover it, and he even puts on a good "what have I done" act towards the end. Castle uses some very good scenes to work for the movie. For example, during the woman's LSD trip, she goes into the bathroom, where all the water in the bathtub and sink are flowing with blood. And it is the only color part of the black and white film. The blurring effects of the LSD trips works just as good, because it blurs stuff so well a skeleton appears to be morphing into something else.

However, the Tingler has some drawbacks. Being a low budget popcorn horror flick, it has some cheap gimmicks and effects a film school student would use. The Tingler looks so ludicrous it works well with the movie. It feels like its over too quickly, and the Tingler itself doesn't appear majorly until the last half hour of the film, but doesn't every horror creature of the 1950s (i.e. The Fly or the Thing From Another World)?

For the time, it's a good movie. It has a funny scene where the Tingler was supposed to break out into the theater you were in or the drive in you were seeing it at and you're supposed to "Scream! Scream for your lives!" or turn on your headlights. Feels gimmicky, and that's what makes it great.

The Tingler is like a movie you'd see with your friends for either appreciation for Vincent Price or William Castle's work, or for a good laugh at the creature, and for that, I give it a thumbs up. I'm happy I purchased it on DVD, and I have James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd (cinemassacre.com), to thank for introducing me to this movie.

And remember: when you are afraid and feel a tingle in your spine, don't be afraid to let loose and scream. Your life depends on it...