The Tingler & Strait-Jacket On Blu-ray!

To me, one of the high points this summer is the Blu-ray releases of two great William Castle films by Scream Factory.

The Tingler (Scream Factory) A great 1959 William Castle film starring Vincent Price as a doctor studying “fear” who discovers slimy, lobster-like creatures attached to your spine who are only destroyed by a scream.

He removes one creature from a dead body and it gets loose in a silent-movie house. This was the film that featured Castle’s gimmick “Percepto,”  which was actually buzzers attached to certain seats in the theater that would periodically give you a shock. Film Forum in New York replicated the gimmick to great acclaim, but when you were a kid and saw this in a theater, like I did, it remains a life-altering experience. Vincent Price even shoots up LSD in an experiment to understand terror.

And there’s a scene with elements of color that is unforgettable. The Blu-ray looks incredible and there’s new audio commentary by author Steve Haberman, and a new interview with actress Pamela Lincoln “I Survived The Tingler,” warmly remembering acting alongside Vincent Price. Also, an interview with publicist Barry Lorie who describes wiring the seats for a movie theater in Denver for the movie’s premiere and the pandemonium the gimmick caused.

Strait-Jacket (Scream Factory) Director William Castle was the master of film gimmicks- from skeletons flying over the audience (House On Haunted Hill) to “ghost viewers” in 13 Ghosts, to free burials to anyone who died of fright seeing Macabre. But here his gimmick is Joan Crawford. He got her to star in this thriller about a woman who took an axe to her husband and his girlfriend. When she’s finally released twenty years later from the loony bin, her understandably nervous daughter (Diane Baker) wonders how to keep Mama down on the farm after she gets an axe in her hand.

Joan is great in the film- first playing the frail, nervous woman. Then scarily transformed when she puts on her old clothes and wig, hurtling her back in time (not a good thing). A scene where she’s drinking, and flirting, with her daughter’s boyfriend and lights a cigarette by dragging a match across a playing record is hilarious.

This Blu-ray looks extraordinary and has extras mined from the out-of-print DVD like “Battle Axe- The Making Of Strait-Jacket”, Joan Crawford’s costume and makeup tests.” A new addition is a great interview with actress Anne Helm– “Joan Had Me Fired,” which recounts how Crawford nastily replaced her with actress Diane Baker. It’s a fabulous story. There’s also a new “On The Road With Joan Crawford” with stories how she tirelessly crossed the country promoting the film.