The Tingler in PERCEPTO!

The Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA is an independent movie house that's been operating since 1933. While they get first run movies, they also offer special programing year round. In addition to the 23rd annual 24 hour horror-thon, this year they also featured Schlock and Awe spotlighting the films of William Castle.

I discovered Castle from his movies with Vincent Price and ever since then, experiencing one his films as audiences did in the 50s and 60s has been a top time machine wish list destination.  

Castle mostly made B movies but his genius was in providing some sort of gimmick in the theater. House on Haunted Hill was filmed in Emergo where a skeleton would "come out" of the screen and float above the audience. For 13 Ghosts, filmed in Illusion-O, audiences were provided a ghost viewer that gave you the option of not seeing the ghosts if you were too terrified. 

You can see the movies offered on the poster above. Joe Dante's movie Matinee features John Goodman playing a William Castle type film maker. House on Haunted Hill is one of my favorite Price movies but I was more interested in experiencing The Tingler in Percepto!.

There was quite a turnout for the movie which made me really happy knowing there are so many other Price fans out there. I mean, I know there are but how often do you get to see one of his movies with an audience? And of course, I brought my Vincent Price action figure with me!

 

The theater had this display setup promoting the horror marathon.

And they also had this in the lobby recreating the advertising for the original movie. Some theaters back then had a similar setup to promote the film.

There was a delay in us being let into the theater. At the time, I didn't think anything of it. Once the audience was seated they came out and told us that the digital projector used for The Tingler was not working and they would reschedule extra shows honoring our tickets. Disappointing but at least I would still get to see the movie as intended.

Because the theater techs had gone through the trouble of rigging the theater for Percepto!, and it was working, we could stay for a showing of Tales of Terror and they would "tingle" us at random so we could get the experience. Tales of Terror is a fun Edgar Allan Poe trilogy of tales directed by Roger Corman that stars Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone. If you read the October Monthly Media Recap, you might remember me saying I "accidentally" saw Tales of Terror so this is how that happened.

By this point, you may be wondering what exactly is Percepto! and how they "tingle" the audience. 

 

 

The answer is a small(ish) buzzer motor put under random seats. They did something similar when the movie was originally released and this is why I chose this particular movie to attend.

I was lucky enough to snag one of the rigged seats. Whether you were sitting in one of these seats or a few away, you felt the tingle! As Tales of Terror wasn't made for Percepto! we got buzzed whenever they felt like it was appropriate. It was fun experiencing the audience reaction. It seems like there were zones rigged in the front, middle, and back of theater that could be triggered at the same time or individually. Sometimes they'd start with the front and it would "roll" back through the theater.

The rescheduled date came down to a tough choice. Another theater was showing Trick R Treat the same night at a conflicting time. I figured the chance to see that in a theater was a lot more likely to come around again than something that required rigging theater seats with tiny motors..

 

I was finally able to see The Tingler in Percepto! What made this extra fun is how the gimmick ties into the movie. The premise is that we all have this creature living inside us that feeds on fear. If you don't release your fear tension, the Tingler will kill you. 

 

The first time I saw the movie, I thought it was a stroke of meta genius to have the climax take place in a movie theater. Just imagine seeing this in a theater when the screen goes pitch black!

 

 

Cue the seat buzzing and overly enthusiastic audience members screaming at the top of their lungs! It's not every day you get to check something off your bucket list that you thought would only be possible with time travel.