B movie horror king of the late 50s / early 60s, William Castle, produced & directed Vincent Price in The Tingler, a tale of a pathological pathologist who experiments on a deaf-mute woman to prove that death by fright is caused by a parasite attached to our spinal chords whose power can only be suppressed by... screaming!

Castle was renowned for his gimmicks (his own choice of word) to spice up the audience experience of his films. Like a life insurance policy for those who died of fright watching Macabre, or the "Emergo" effect for House on Haunted Hill which turned out to be... a fake skeleton on wires swung around over the audience's heads 😆

For The Tingler, he created the "Percepto" gimmick: surplus military wing de-icing motors attached under about 1 in 10 chairs in the cinemas, activated at key moments by the projectionist to give the "lucky" audience members a startling buzz.

He also hired plants, a woman who would scream and "faint" to be carried out by an "ambulance crew".

Castle was an inspiration to people like John Waters (remember the "Odorama" gimmick in Polyester?), Joe Dante (who referenced The Tingler in Gremlins 2 & made the Castle-inspired Matinee) and even mime legend Marcel Marceau (?!), one of whose last screen appearances was speaking ("oui!") in the documentary Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story.

#ReMonsterdon is a watch party showing films previously seen in the #Monsterdon watch party on Mastodon.

This Sunday 21 June we're watching The Tingler at 7pm GMT/UTC

• 7pm GMT, 8pm WEST, 9pm CEST
• 12pm US PDT, 1pm MX Centro, 3pm US EDT
• See 7pm GMT in your local time

Buy, rent, stream or download the film, press PLAY at the appointed hour & join in the fun posting on Mastodon with the hashtag #ReMonsterdon

And remember to scream!!!

Watch party info & film links

• ReMonsterdon collection on NeoDB
• Watch party announcement with followup posts like interview clips with Joe Dante, John Waters etc