Can a campy horror movie also be good? In the case of The Tingler, the answer is an emphatic YES.

The Tingler was produced and directed by William Castle. He was known for elaborate and gimmicky promotion of his films. In this instance, the gimmick was Percepto: A device that supposedly made seats in the theatre tingle for the tingler. A perceptive person could figure out that Percepto was as phony as a three-dollar bill but who cares when there’s cake?

That’s William Castle with my main man, Vincent Price. Vinnie plays a pathologist who is convinced that there’s a creature within all of us, that he dubs-what else?- the tingler.

When it’s on the loose, the tingler looks like a lobster. I wonder if Graham Platner has ever encountered one while oystering? Beats the hell outta explaining away a Nazi tattoo.

Castle’s introduction to the movie informs us that the tingler can be defeated by screaming, so he urged the audience to scream like banshees. I took him up on the offer and screamed sporadically throughout the film’s 82 minute running time. I did a lot of riffing during the movie. Something about The Tingler brought out the RiffTrax/MST3K fan in me. Actually, that happens with every Vincent Price movie.

When we first meet Price’s character, Dr. Warren Chapin, he seems like a normie. How can anyone who shares a first name with Warren Zevon be a normie? Not when they’re played by Vincent Price who’s the first character in Hollywood history to take an acid trip, not sulfuric acid, LSD. I wonder if they consulted with Cary Grant, Timothy Leary, or Lucy:

Forgive the anachronisms, sometimes I can’t help myself. Does that make me like Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Price meets a seemingly mild-mannered man named Ollie played by Philip Coolidge at the beginning of the movie. His brother-in-law had just been executed for murder; he was at the Coroner’s Office to formally identify the body:

Ollie and his wife, played by Judith Evelyn, run a cinema that shows silent movies:

Ollie’s wife is a deaf mute, which makes her the perfect subject for Vinnie’s tingler experiments. It makes her see red:

An alternate title for The Tingler is When Vinnie Met Ollie. The original is better.

There are a series of set pieces involving Price’s blended family, virago wife played by Patricia Cutts, and a black cat:

The cat was unharmed. You didn’t think a feline actor like Vincent Price would hurt a cat, did you?

Vinnie’s right hand man is played by Darryl Hickman the real life brother of Dwayne, TV’s Dobie Gillis.

The Hickman brothers look alike, so I riffed about Bob Denver who played Dobie’s beatnik sidekick Maynard G. Krebs. He’s best known as Gilligan, which made Hickman Vinnie’s little buddy in The Tingler.

Speaking of little buddies, Price was saved from the tingler by Pamela Lincoln who played Hickman’s girlfriend and Price’s ward:

The premise of The Tingler is ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculously entertaining and defies serious analysis, so I won’t attempt any. Suffice it to say that it made me scream with joy followed by laughter. I am tingler free as a result.

Grading Time: I give The Tingler 3 1/2 stars and an Adrastos Grade of B+. I’m a soft touch for any Vincent Price movie.

Let’s goose things up by taking a gander at a side-by-side shot of the American and Italian posters.

Let’s visit the quad:

All that screaming has left me parched. Let’s all go to the lobby for a beverage.

My thirst is slaked. Wanna see some lobby cards? You have no choice:

To paraphrase Jerry Lee Lewis, there’s a whole lotta screaming going on in The Tingler. Is the trailer quieter?

The last word goes to TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz: