Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Not even bad in a good way

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Generally, I like William Castle films, but this one seems to be a Castle gimmick looking for a plot. It's generally pretty weak on that, even with good performances by Price and Judith Evelyn. I will say Castle did a pretty good job making Price the red herring here, and not completely sympathetic. Other than that, it's a weak entry for him of his earlier work in horror, nowhere near the campiness of House on Haunted Hill, or the bizarre, twisted but fun Homicidal.

I was born and grew up in South Bend, Indiana. I lived first next to the State Theater (still there being preserved) and was the standard Saturday afternoon for all the kids to see usually 2 westerns, maybe 2-3 serials of a science fiction 10-15 part and occasional, a new film concept to compete to the "new rival" television. My best memory was seeing the Tingler. Well, many seats were "wired" to vibrate when "The Tingler" entered "The real theater" seen "in the film" which "was a movie theater" coming through the projection room windows, which in the film went black as "if came out" into the "real world" from the "reel world" so to say. I sat through it twice, so in the second screening was a space where I sat, then an empty chair and then a "black girl" sat at the isle. In those days many kid groups went to this theater and each had "their section" to sit and cheer, etc. So, waiting for the "Tingler" to start "it's tour", in sound and seat locations. I waited for the seat to vibrate under the girl. YES, that "special" moment. WELL, she jumped up out of her seat almost airborne. It was, indeed "A scream" and my best "kid" memory for those special early 50's Saturday movie days, long vanished.I got a 25 cent allowance. It was 14 cents for the film and 10 cents for popcorn. I penny got little. BUT, the manager knew me and often I got in free.That did "a quarter get you" in 1958????? A half dozen freshly baked donuts, warm out of the bakery at the Ten Cent Store across the street. If lucky had the frosting on them and made when you came in. Can no be any fresher. Fondest of many memories. Hope you have many today, with the films now released in many ways. From small screen to 3D IMAX. And FILM "has a different look" that the new DVD projection. And key is those center seats, right in the middle. And with the sometimes NOW 6 channel stereo, and even better as people move across a screen or talk "behind" you. Enjoy.

Well it started with a good premise and with Vincent Price in the lead role, this had the makings of a real horror classic but sadly it degenerated into a dopey picture in the second half. That creepy-crawlie that looked like a cross between an over-sized caterpillar and a lobster was just the cheesiest concept; I wouldn't be surprised if the film makers stuffed a kid's slinky inside to get it to move around the way it did.But you know what really blew my mind? Dr. Warren Chapin boned up on the science of fear causing tremendous tension in the body by reading a tract titled "Fright Effects Induced by Lysergic Acid LSD25"! What?!?! Vincent Price experimenting with LSD!!!! And then, in order to experience first hand what the power of the tingler would be all about, he actually injected himself to induce the kind of paranoia and fear that would result from it! However the writing for the rest of the story seemed to be all over the place. Testing out his hypothesis regarding what would happen if a mute couldn't scream from fear, Chapin similarly injects Martha Higgins (Judith Evelyn) with the LSD causing hallucinations and a rigidity in her back that produces the aforementioned tingler creature. But what's with husband Ollie (Philip Coolidge) going Nightmare on Elm Street on her? Same thing with Chapin's wife Isabel (Patricia Cutts) - one minute he's shooting her with blanks to scare the bejeezus out of her and later on she's all cool about it.But hey, neat special effect with the bathtub full of red blood in a black and white movie, as all the while I kept an eye on that skeleton Chapin kept in his lab. If I had to bet, I'd say it was the same one used in another Vincent Price flick made the same year - "House on Haunted Hill".

I have to tell you, though many consider The Tingler to be one of Vincent Price's greatest horror films and certainly the idea is original enough, I find the cruelty in this film just a bit much. But I know I'm a minority opinion.Vincent Price plays a pathologist whose usual patients are the dead as he performs autopsies on executed victims. He has a theory that fear is a result of a creature maybe no bigger than microscopic size can develop within all of us and the act of screaming kills same. But how to prove his hypothesis.Sad to say a perfect subject is found in Judith Evelyn, wife of neighbor Philip Coolidge who runs a movie theater specializing in silent film nostalgia. Evelyn is a deaf mute and without vocal cords, she cannot utter a sound if she could.The Tingler does in fact grow within her. I have to say that Judith Evelyn's performance was something outstanding, how she registered such incredible fear with facial expressions.But the film I find is something gruesome, as gruesome as The Tingler that Price and Coolidge find.