In the late fifties a filmmaker named William Castle directed one of Vincent Price's better horror films, "The Tingler". Castle was known mostly for his promotional gimmicks including having nurses on hand for audience members suffering from heart conditions, running human skeletons out over the audience's heads during a similar scene in the original "House On Haunted Hill" and, in "The Tingler" wiring the theater seats to give mild shocks whenever the Tingler would appear onscreen. A character based on Castle, and played by John Goodman, can be seen in one of my favorite films from the early nineties, "Matinee".
Well, you (all of five of you) have an opportunity to see one of the most bizarre, camp-y, Price-tastictm movies ever made. It has Castle's signature combination of suburban melodrama (it seems like he would always have some sort of George and Martha/"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"- type marriage in his films) and odd, break-the-rules-he-himself-set-up horror, along with his Castle gimmick. The best part in this film is where Vincent Price looks at YOU (the viewing audience) and begs to "SCREAM- SCREAM FOR YOUR LIVES!!!"
Or it felt like that anyway. Anytime Vincent Price screams his lines at the top of his lungs, it's usually the best part of the film for me.
On Turner Classic Movies, Friday, August 10,2007 @ 12:15 PM est.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment