Quantcast Horror Film History — Horror Films in the 1950s - part 2

Horror Movies of the 1950s (2): American International Pictures, Drive Ins, William Castle, House On Haunted Hill, The Tingler, Vincent Price

Stranded at the Drive-in: JDs, Sleaze & AIP

Horror movies in the 1950s were dominated by the 'B' picture. Stephen King attributes the budget B-movie company, American International Pictures with single handedly saving the horror genre. In 1956 James H Nicholson & Samuel Z Arkoff decided that there was money to be made in supplying the bottom end of the cinema market with two-for-the-price-of-one movies. The B-picture was thought to be dead, the two-picture moviegoing experience usurped by television. However, Arkoff and Nicholson had a very specific audience in mind - one that enjoyed NOT sitting in the living room surrounded by close family members. And they knew what teenagers wanted.

“What elements made these AIP films shlock classics? They were simple, shot in a hurry, and so amateurish that one can sometimes see the shadow of a boom mike in the shot or catch the gleam of an air tank inside the monster suit of an underwater creature (as in The Attack of the Giant Leeches). Arkoff himself recalls that they rarely began with a completed script or even a coherent screen treatment, often money was committed to projects on the basis of a title that sounded commercial, such as Terror from the Year 5000 or The Brain Eaters, something that would make an eye-catching poster.”— Stephen King, Danse Macabre, p46

With titles like The Ghost In The Invisible Bikini (show me a teenager who doesn't want to see THAT!!), and a willingness to experiment and move on, AIP produced a range of horror B-movies which sewed up the drive-in market. Perhaps the most famous is I Was A Teenage Frankenstein, directed squarely at the teen drive-in audience squirming on the seats of their cars.

American International Pictures links

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Trick or Treat?

The 1950s saw a number of technical innovations in the cinema; CinemaScope, Cinerama, Stereophonic sound, 3-D and even Smell-O-Vision (!), all designed to lure the audience away from their TV sets. Whilst big-budget, full-technicolour Hollywood epics offered a real 'big screen' alternative, lower budget movies needed extra gimmicks to pull in the punters. One ex-music hall impresario, William Castle, understood what it took to get the audience actively involved in the horror experience, and, with his production company Castle Pictures, launched a series of gimmicks to draw the crowds. The devices added to the fun of the horror movie experience, audiences screamed as much with laughter as anything else. This is the sort of shared experience delighted in by viewers of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and is a concept deftly explored in the 1991 movie Popcorn (Tagline = Buy it in a box. Go home in a bag). Castle also toured the country exhibiting his movies, fully understanding that he could sell them by hyping them into events.

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Another low budget shocker starring Vincent Price: an eccentric millionaire entices five unlucky souls into his haunted mansion with the promise of a cash prize if they can survive the night. It's based in principle, if not in detail, on Shirley Jackson's highly successful novel, The Haunting of Hill House (which Robert Wise turned into the classic The Haunting four years later). Naturally, notorious penny-pincher Castle wasn't about to pay for the rights.

Whilst the original has a cast of paranormal investigators seriously intrigued by the vibrations of a haunted property, this version is all about the quick shock and overnight survival of the fittest. Price presides over a veritable fun house of shock and startle. But not all the surprises are on screen. Castle rigged a device called the Emergo, in selected cinemas, a glowing skeleton which, at a certain point in the film screeched out over the heads of the audience causing them to screech in delight.

The Tingler (1959)

Grossing over $2million off a $400,000 budget, The Tingler was another success for Castle, and is an object lesson in marketing hype. The story is, in the main, misogynistic melodrama, and the solitary monster is just over a foot long. However, Castle's showmanship and Vincent Price's performance bring it to another level, and it is considered a classic of its kind. A remake, from one of the Saw writers, is slated for 2009.

In the second of two movies Price made with Castle that year, he plays Dr. Warren Chapin, a gentleman-scientist fascinated by the concept of fear. While autopsying the bodies of executed prisoners he has observed that the vertebrae crack at the moment of execution, as though under some immense pressure which has nothing to do with the electrocution. He believes that there is some kind of fear-generated force which occupies a space at the base of the human spine, and becomes obsessed with proving its physical existence. He dubs that force 'the Tingler'.

Dr Chapin is a mad scientist in the classic sense of the word. Apart from his work in the prison morgue, he has a home laboratory (paid for by his alcoholic, unfaithful wife, Isabel) where he and his young apprentice, David, conduct experiments on fear in living things. Chapin needs human subjects, however, the cats David kidnaps from alleys aren't cutting it any more. He conducts a cruel experiment on Isabel, deliberately terrifying her by threatening her and shooting her with a blank bullet. He X-rays her while she's unconscious and discovers a suspicious mass at the base of her spine— proof he is on the right track.

Self Medication

Chapin then experiments on himself. He declares that he is too logical and sensible to feel fear under normal circumstances, so, in an extremely bizarre sequence for 1959, he doses himself with LSD (it was still legal to do so at the time) and records his reaction to the subsequent hallucinations. This marks LSD's first screen appearance — the screenwriter Robb White heard about it from Aldous Huxley and went to UCLA to try it for himself. Chapin thrashes round in his lab, fearing the walls are closing in on him (eyebrows akimbo, Price is given free rein to chew whatever scenery comes to hand), but, unfortunately, gives in to an almighty scream before the fear reaches its peak.

Thwarted, Price vows to find a test subject who will allow the Tingler to reach its fullest physical manifestation without dissipating its energy with a scream. His eyes light on the wife of Ollie, a rather odd individual who runs the local silent movie theatre, and who likes hanging out with Dr Chapin at the autopsy table. Mrs Higgins is a deaf mute, physically unable to scream, who loses consciousness at the climax of fear, when it all becomes too much for her. Dr Chapin pays her a visit, discovers she is feeling unwell and gives her a shot that looks suspiciously similar to the LSD he dosed himself with earlier. When she comes round she is threatened by slamming doors, prowling ghouls, and, when she flees to the bathroom for safety, a tub full of lurid red blood — unnerving, in the middle of a black and white film.

Unsurprisingly, she drops dead of terror, and her willing husband brings the corpse up to the friendly neighborhood pathologist, Dr Chapin. In order to investigate the cause of death he draws screens around his examining table, and in dramatic, full effect silhouette, extracts a monstrous looking shadow from the unfortunate deceased's spine.

This, when Dr Chapin brings it from behind the curtain, turns out to be a revolting rubber creature, bastard child of an earwig and a slug. Castle was as tight-fisted as they come when allocating SFX (or any category) budgets, and the Tingler is a crude effect indeed. You can see the wires that pull it around in a number of shots. However, it is surprisingly effective in all its rubber repulsiveness, especially when it attacks Dr Chapin with its pincers. It's ugly and phallic enough to inspire nightmares of a most nasty sort.

Playing God

Chapin, unusually for a mad scientist, realises he has made a mistake — after trying unsuccessfully to destroy the Tingler with a blowtorch. He intones his regret to his young apprentice:

“To break the laws of nature is always a dangerous thing. We've not only broken laws, we've violated some basic principles. We had to, but now we're going to stop.”

This statement sounds reasonable, even plausible, when rolled round Vincent Price's sonorous tones; his deft interpretation of this kind of material is a mark of his consummate skill as an actor and explains why he was so beloved by the B-movie set. Chapin vows to reunited Mrs Higgins and her Tingler, as this is the only way to kill it. Unfortunately, Ollie isn't answering his phone, and there appear to be some irregularities about his wife's death. Ollie is seen in possession of a rubber ghoul mask and a quantity of fake blood. It seems Chapin isn't the only one willing to sacrifice his wife for the cause.

Chapin arrives at the Higgin's home with the boxed Tingler, looking for Mrs Higgins' corpse. While he argues with Ollie about how the dead woman met her fate, the Tingler escapes and makes its way down into the theatre through a convenient gap in the floorboards. We're all set for a showdown.

Join In The Fun

The final reel of The Tingler is a remarkable piece of audience participation. Castle blurs the boundaries between the movie audience and the movie-audience-within-the-movie with panache. He primes prospective cinemagoers in the trailer, promising them

"For the first time in motion picture history, members of the audience, including you, will actually play a part in the picture. You will feel some of the physical reactions, the shocking sensations experienced by the actors on the screen."

It's 1959, and he can't resist adding a cold war coda to his promise, jamming in as many buzz words as he can:

"Don't be alarmed, you can protect yourself. When you see the picture, you will be told, and remember the instructions, how you can guard yourself from attack from... The Tingler."

Well versed in Protect and Survive techniques, the obedient audience are only too ready to do as they are told. As the Tingler creeps into the auditorium and starts crawling up a girl's leg, Chapin pulls the lights and plunges them (and us) into pitch darkness. Deprived of sensory input apart from the screams on the soundtrack and Chapin's fake reassurances that there is no cause for alarm, it's time to indulge your fear. It's also time for your date to put his/her hand anywhere that might convince you there's a Tingler invading your space! This is also when the much publicised "Percepto" device came into play. Roughly every tenth chair in the auditorium was rigged with a vibrator, set to go off randomly during this sequence, adding to the startled shrieks and yells.

More terror is to come as the Tingler crawls into the booth and breaks the film print off the projector. Both screens, our own and the movie-theatre-within-a-movie, display the grotesque, magnified shadow of the Tingler. Once again, everyone is plunged into darkness, as Chapin announces

"Ladies and Gentlemen, please don't panic, but SCREAM. Scream for your lives. The Tingler is loose in this theatre. If you don't scream, it will kill you."

You bet everyone screams - a good scream is as effective a release as a good laugh, and is one of the reasons audiences enjoy horror movies so much. There are few other socially acceptably opportunities to scream your lungs out. And screaming is the only way to paralyse the Tingler, so that Chapin can pick it up and put it back in its box, rendering it entirely harmless once again.

Threat removed, game over, the audience could go home happy and relieved. However the latent menace of the era could not be so easily negated. As well as the Cold War and perils of the atomic age, a new danger was appearing on the horizon - quite literally. The time had come to watch the skies.

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