How often do you leave a theater drunk with the sheer joy of what you've just experienced? I'm dazed and dizzy from the opening night of LACMA's William Castle Festival, a screening of Castle's inimitable The Tingler. The Museum pulled out all the stops in ways that would warm the long-dead director's heart: staff members were dressed as nurses and doctors at the entrance, and patrons were offered photo ops with a life-size Tingler. Castle's daughter, Terry, did a hilarious Q & A before the film began with another Tingler sitting on her lap.
The audience's response was INCREDIBLE--this B-picture, over fifty years old and originally shot in two weeks, killed tonight. The totally receptive audience went berserk, won-over by Castle's and star Vincent Price's charisma and charm, and by the movie's sheer wonderful ludicrousness. When Price begged the viewers to "scream, scream for their lives," we all did. . . When the end title came up, we cheered and applauded madly, completely enamored of the bizarre catharsis of laughter and screaming we had communally experienced. Sheer, epic, unrelenting FUN.
And I won a Tingler t-shirt. All for five bucks.
THANK YOU, WILLIAM CASTLE!!!!!!!
THANK YOU, LACMA!!!!!!!
I can't recommend this series highly enough--for further information, check out LACMA's own Castle page:
http://www.lacma.org/series/let-there-be-fright-william-castle-scare-classics
I can't recommend this series highly enough--for further information, check out LACMA's own Castle page:
http://www.lacma.org/series/let-there-be-fright-william-castle-scare-classics
