Review All Things WILLIAM CASTLE!

[chainsaw_metal1]

William Castle: Horror marketing genius or schlock king?

Do his gimmicks overshadow his movies? Or should he be dismissed the way Ed Wood has been dismissed by film critics and snobs?

Should any of his films be considered classics?

 

[Doctor Omega]

The first thing that springs to mind when I think of William Castle is House on Haunted Hill, with it's skeleton being brought out into the audience on strings. And then there was The Tingler with it's electrified cinema seats.

So yes, I guess the gimmicks are kind of part of his legacy, but the films themselves are fun and, like Ed Wood, I don't think he ever made a film that could be accused of being boring.

He may or may not have made a classic, but to have left a load of boring films behind would be a worse legacy, I suspect. Thankfully he hasn't.

 

[chainsaw_metal1]

So yes, I guess the gimmicks are kind of part of his legacy, but the films themselves are fun and, like Ed Wood, I don't think he ever made a film that could be accused of being boring.

Exactly. Did he need the gimmicks? No, probably not. But they certainly did the job they were meant to do, and have, as you said, become part of the legacy.

He may or may not have made a classic, but to have left a load of boring films behind would be a worse legacy, I suspect. Thankfully he hasn't.

See, I see films much differently than most film buffs. I see a film like HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL or 13 GHOSTS as being classics in their own right. They really are fun films. They might not be CITIZEN KANE or GONE WITH THE WIND, but if you sit down to watch his films, you are certainly in for a treat. The fact that he was able to become friends with a gentleman like Vincent Price and get him to do two of his films speaks volumes on the man. And luckily - where Wood befriended Lugosi well past his peak - Price was at the top of his game, only outdoing his performances in those films in Corman's films.

Actually, one could write a college treatise on how Vincent Price could so easily do a class picture and then turn around and give just as good a performance in so many B pictures.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Matinee is a 1993 period comedy film directed by Joe Dante. It is a ensemble piece about a William Castle-type independent filmmaker, with the home front in the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop. The film stars John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub, Robert Picardo and Kellie Martin. A then-unknown Naomi Watts has a small role as a character in a film within the film. It was written by Jerico Stone[1] and Charlie Haas, the latter portraying Mr. Elroy, a schoolteacher.


Films within the film

Mant!

Woolsey's low-budget Mant! is a parody morphing of several low-budget science-fiction horror films of the 1950s (many in black & white) that fused radioactivity with mad science and mutation: In particular Tarantula (1955), wherein a scientist is injected with an atomic isotope formula with disastrous results, and in general the films Them! (1954); The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955) The Deadly Mantis (1957); The Black Scorpion (1957); The Amazing Colossal Man (1957); Monster That Challenged the World (1957); Beginning of the End(1957); War of the Colossal Beast (1958); The Fly (1958) and The Alligator People (1959). The depiction of Mant!'s use of "Rumble-Rama" is a riff on William Castle's many in-theatre gimmicks ("Emergo", "Percepto", "Illusion-O", "Shock Sections" etc.), however, the only "monster movie" produced or directed by William Castle before 1970 was 1959's The Tingler, which did not use a radiation theme. "Rumble-Rama" is also a nod to Sensurround, Universal's sound process of the 1970's. Matinee also mentions some of Woolsey's earlier "films": Island of the Flesh Eaters, The Eyes of Doctor Diablo, and The Brain Leeches (not to be confused with the real-world 1977 film of the same name).

 

[Doctor Omega]

Mant (1993) - Short Film

The depiction of Mant!'s use of "Rumble-Rama" is a riff on William Castle's many in-theatre gimmicks ("Emergo", "Percepto", "Illusion-O", "Shock Sections" etc.), however, the only "monster movie" produced or directed by William Castle before 1970 was 1959's The Tingler, which did not use a radiation theme.

"Mant," the story of a man who has mutated into a giant ant. This is the complete 'film within a film', which was featured in Joe Dante's 'Matinee' from 1993. A parody or homage morphing of several low-budget science-fiction horror films of the 1950s (many in black & white) that fused radioactivity with mad science and mutation.