Spine Tingler: The William Castle
Story
Director: Jeffrey Schwarz
Year: 2007
Rating: 7.0
William Castle was one of the last great promoters
and showmen in the movie business. Back when they weren't all interchangeable
suits. A personality that could charm a snake or even Harry Cohn at Columbia.
Full of bravado and ambition. Watching the films he directed on TV now can
never really replicate the experience of seeing them in theaters. Unless
you have hired someone to scream and run out of your home or have attached
a Tingler to your bottom. He was the Master of the Gimmick.
Before that though he had convinced Cohn
to hire him at Columbia where he learned how to make movies. Dozens of them
and many that I have seen. All B films of all genres. Noir, Westerns, crime,
but it was horror that he wanted to do. So he went off on his own and raised
money by mortgaging his house. Macabre in 1957 was his first film and his
first gimmick. The audience was given insurance that if they died of fright,
their family would get $1,000 from Lloyds of London. No one collected. In
House on Haunted Hill, he had skeletons flying around the theater.
The Tingler is perhaps his most famous in
which he put electronic gizmos on the back of seats that would give the sitter
a shock. And during the scene when Vincent Price yells there is a Tingler
loose in the theater, a woman is paid to scream and run out. Now all we have
are people on their phones and $10 popcorn. Some of his other titles are
13 Ghosts, Homicidal, Mr. Sardonicus and Strait-Jacket with Joan Crawford.
He produced Rosemary's Baby. But by the end of the 60s his style of fun fairly
innocent horror was out of favor and the gimmicks were from another age.
The studios wanted none of that. He passed away at 63. This is a solid documentary
with a few fanboy talking heads, clips of the films and Castle promoting
his films.