Spine Tingler (2007)

SPINE TINGLER: THE WILLIAM CASTLE STORY 
    D: Jeffrey Schwartz                                   (2007)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
A documentary on the career of William Castle, the schlock filmmaker whose cinematic gifts to the world included "The Tingler", "Straight-Jacket", "13 Frightened Girls" and "House On Haunted Hill". Like a lot of B-movie directors, Castle knew how to get a picture made on the cheap, but his genius was in the field of gimmicky promotion. He knew his audience - mostly teenagers - and he knew how to fill the seats, especially when the seats were rigged with tiny vibrating buzzers timed to go off at a particular moment in the film. The gimmicks were never less than cheesy, and Castle's adolescent viewers never had less than a good time. There's nobody quite like Castle working today. In the age of viral Internet ad campaigns and big opening weekends, there couldn't be. The promotional landscape has changed. Of course, there's nobody quite like P.T. Barnum working today, either. And that's something William Castle would understand.