EDITOR’S NOTE: The Tingler was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 2, 1965 at 1 a.m. It also aired on March 11 and November 25, 1967 and May 9, 1970.

The third of five films that director William Castle and writer Robb White made together — the others are Macabre, House On Haunted Hill, 13 Ghosts and Homicidal — this movie starts with Castle talking right to us, the audience: “I am William Castle, the director of the motion picture you are about to see. I feel obligated to warn you that some of the sensations—some of the physical reactions which the actors on the screen will feel—will also be experienced, for the first time in motion picture history, by certain members of this audience. I say ‘certain members’ because some people are more sensitive to these mysterious electronic impulses than others. These unfortunate, sensitive people will at times feel a strange, tingling sensation; other people will feel it less strongly. But don’t be alarmed — you can protect yourself. At any time you are conscious of a tingling sensation, you may obtain immediate relief by screaming. Don’t be embarrassed about opening your mouth and letting rip with all you’ve got, because the person in the seat right next to you will probably be screaming too. And remember this—a scream at the right time may save your life.”

Dr. Warren Chapin (Vincent Price) has learned that each one of us has a tingler, a parasite that is attached to our spine that feeds and grows stronger when we are afraid. The only way to stop this from killing us is to scream.

He is able to take a tingler from the body of Martha Higgins (Judith Evelyn), a deaf and mute woman who could not scream and the wife of a man — Oliver Higgins (Phillip Coolidge) — whose theater only shows silent movies. It turns out that Higgins killed his wife by fright and now the tingler gets loose in his theater. This is where the gimmick of this movie would come in, as special chairs would vibrate as Dr. Chapin asks for the lights to be shut out and everyone to scream for their lives.

Percepto was the gimmick for this movie. Castle attached electrical buzzers — war surplus airplane wing deicing motors — that buzzed the seats. When the big scene happens — during a scene from the silent movie Tol’able David — Price’s voice frightens everyone by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, please do not panic. But scream! Scream for your lives! The tingler is loose in this theater!” In drive-ins, there was a different version of the movie with Castle’s voice saying that the tingler was loose in the drive-in.

In their excoriable book The Golden Turkey Awards, Harry and Michael Medved gave Percepto the award for “The Most Inane and Unwelcome ‘Technical Advance” in Hollywood History.” My hatred for them is incalculable.

Castle hedged his bets by adding red color to a black and white murder scene in the bath as well as placing professional fainters and a doctor and nurse that would revive them in certain theaters. The guy was the kind of lunatic that I wish was still making movies. He also experimented with rolling bean bags to brush against the legs of audience members, speakers mounted at different areas that would make noises when the tingler appeared and even having people physically tickle the legs of people in their seats.

This was also the first movie to reference LSD.

John Waters has mentioned this movie several times as one that he loves. He told NPR that when the tingler got loose, “Every kid went crazy. It was cinema mayhem.” He even played Castle on the TV show Feud: Bette and Joan and wrote an introduction for the 1992 re-issue of Castle’s autobiography, Step Right Up!: I’m Gonna Scare the Pants off America.

Everyone should read that book.

You can watch this on Tubi.