Rare is the film that overtly deals with the topic of fear itself, and that's not all that makes The Tingler (1959) a one of a kind movie.
It plays out as a sort of alternate reality in that there exists within (at least many of) us a parasitic creature that dwells in our spinal region. It feeds on our fear, and causes our spines to tingle to the point of paralysis, except for it goes undetected because by the time it swells large enough is the point when we normally SCREAM... and screaming causes it to shrivel down into the likes of a gummy worm.
And so begins our tale with Vincent Price as "Dr. Warren Chapin", psychiatrist by day, and mad scientist by day and night. His own dark instincts have positioned him to be the first to discover this cerebral crustacean, and to do it he's recruited LSD and is ready to wield the razors edge of murder in order to live capture one of these beasts.
They went and made an actual experience of the affair, the stuff of mad psychiatry mind you, in that they added electroshock devices to the arms of the chairs in the movie theaters at the showings of the day. Note that this was certainly one of the original manifestations of the so-called 4D theater experience, and this film in particular was the inspiration of Matinee (1993).
Now to me this film speaks of something far more creepy, and that is the boogeyman inside all of us. Down back behind our conscious mind is the subconscious / unconscious. The brain / mind happens to be amongst my favorite realms of thought and research, as a psychonaut. But over the years the pattern of getting the impression others easily get spooked by my kinds of discussions about it all. To me this is ironic, for example, as today as much as ever people are obsessing about RACISM amongst its related isms. But I tend to write about the layer behind the facade, which is racism is merely one form of tribalism, and that we homo sapiens all have encoded into our DNA a primal tribalist urge to form into groups and to place people into groups. This urge is the foundation of all human civilization mind you, and in my experience this layer is almost never reflected upon in any of the raging debates about racism, sexism, etc, etc that I've been browsing aplenty in recent times.
So one might expect pieces on deep analysis into this realm would get people talking, but instead I find it seems to repel people instead. The boogeyman tickles 'the tingler', but instead of scream they bolt. Eventually they all do scream though dont they? Just look at people marching in pandemonium over this stuff these days. I get the same sense of flight when I often draw insights from social/psychology into explaining political science in other ways too of course. For instance, psychopathy and its role in the upper echelons of power that dominate us are areas of discussion that often seems to tickle peoples spidey-senses and trigger retreat. Here I'm beginning to surmise its also an urge within all of us, at least when we're in group think mode, as its does seem at the ready to show its face in our ability to dehumanize one another when paired off into rival groups. Just look at sports hooliganism, people en masse out rioting and committing atrocities over their favorite sports team, if you're not naturally inclined to think much into what I'm getting at here.
Therefore it can be argued the the 'Tingler' is real on many levels or shall we say its a real layer of discontent urges within all of us, especially when we enter group think. It's just too bad we cant all go into a theater as teenagers and as a big group scream out of our minds in a proper theater showing. Maybe it'd do us all some good as society is apparently loosing it like never before.
