If youve never seen The Tingler on the big screen, with the Percepto gimmick recreated for a modern audience, you havent lived. When first shown, random seats were rigged with war surplus motors, causing them to vibrate at key moments during the film and (in theory) make the viewer scream. You see, Dr Warren Chapin (Vincent Price) is convinced that theres something inside every frightened person thats as solid as steel. Using his cheating wife as a guinea pig, he discovers The Tingler, the organism that attaches to the spine in moments of terror and can only be released by screaming. If someone died unable to scream, their body would contain a perfect Tingler specimen. Enter theatre-owner Martha Higgins (Judith Evelyn) and her louse of a spouse Ollie (Philip Coolidge). Martha, being a deaf mute, cannot scream. She also faints at the sight of blood and Ollie, unbeknownst to the Doc, is planning to do away with her. Can you see where this is going? In the films most famous sequence, the screen goes blank while Price tells the audience, Do not panic.but scream! Scream for your lives! The Tingler is loose in this theatre! Keep screaming!
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
