WILLIAM CASTLE (in prologue): I am William Castle, the director of the motion picture you are about to see. I feel obligated to warn you that some of the sensations--some of the physical reactions which the actors on the screen will feel will also be experienced, for the first time in motion picture history, by certain members of this audience. I say certain members because some people are more sensitive to these mysterious electronic impulses than others. These, uh, unfortunate, sensitive people will at times feel a strange, tingling sensation; other people will feel it less strongly. But don't be alarmed--you can protect yourself. At any time you are conscious of a tingling sensation, you may obtain immediate relief by screaming. Don't be embarrassed about opening your mouth and letting rip with all you've got, because the person in the seat right next to you will probably be screaming too. And remember this - a scream at the right time may save your life.

OLLIE HIGGINS (Philip Coolidge): Does it always kill them – in... in the chair?
DR. WARREN CHAPIN (Vincent Price): Well, I've never heard of it failing.
OLLIE HIGGINS: Well, in the chair... does it hurt them?
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Not if it's done properly. At least I don't think so.
OLLIE HIGGINS: Even a slight shock hurts.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Try putting an electrode soaked in saline solution on your head and another one strapped to your leg and then slamming two thousand volts between them. If it hurts let me know.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: I've seen this phenomenon many times in people who were badly frightened just before they died. There's a force in all of us that science knows nothing about. The force of fear. That it's strong enough to shatter the spinal column we know. But what it is – what causes it to appear and disappear, we don't know. Someday I intend to find out.
OLLIE HIGGINS: Maybe it's the force that makes you spine tingle when you're scared.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Exactly. The tingle? It can do a great deal more than that. You know, it's odd – I've been experimenting with this force for years – never had a name for it until now. Now I think I'll call it The Tingler.

DAVID MORRIS (Darryl Hickman): Here, I got that prescription for you (hands Warren a vial of LSD).
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Oh good. You know, from the articles I've read, this is a very interesting drug.
DAVID MORRIS: So is nitroglycerin.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Dave – where is that 'all for science' attitude? DAVID MORRIS: I left it in my other suit. Now please don't fool with that stuff alone, Warren – it can produce some pretty weird effects.

ISABEL CHAPIN (Patricia Cutts): You know Warren – you've lost contact with living people. Nobody means anything to you anymore – unless they're dead and you can root around in them with your sharp little knives. There's a word for you.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: There are several for you.

ISABEL CHAPIN: The only way Dave Morris will marry my sister is over my dead body.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Unconventional but not impossible.

ISABEL CHAPIN: I'm tired and I'm sleepy. Goodnight.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Stay awake a little longer. Who knows? The next time you sleep it may be forever.

ISABEL CHAPIN: I had nothing to do with my father's death, and you know it.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Would you like me to prove it isn't nonsense?
ISABEL CHAPIN: You can't prove anything, because there's nothing to prove.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: But you wouldn't like me to try, would you? And you should remember this too, Darling - organic poisons are like old soldiers, they never die, they just lie smoldering in the grave - and I'm not bad at autopsies either.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN (holding gun): Either you give Lucy half of all the money you've got and leave her alone, or you commit suicide right now.
ISABEL CHAPIN: Suicide? You mean murder.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: When I finish rearranging things, it'll look like suicide, now make up your mind. We'll want to be through with this before Lucy comes home.
ISABEL CHAPIN: I'm not giving that stupid child anything so you can put away that silly pistol.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: This silly pistol can put a hole in you the size of a medium grapefruit.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: ...fear causes the tingler to spread across the spinal column, and probably with those arm-like things across the vertebrae, and forces it to become arched and rigid.
DAVID MORRIS: And you believe that screaming, or perhaps any sound the human in fear can make, deenergizes it – paralyzes it.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Well, the screaming seems to stop the tingler from bending the spinal column. Screaming may even dissolve it, or if it's a living organism – kill it.

LUCY STEVENS (Pamela Lincoln): I'm worried David, Isabel has been sweet to me all morning.
DAVID MORRIS: Me too, she even said hello, she even smiled.
LUCY STEVENS: So look out, the roof is going to fall in.

LUCY STEVENS: Dave, that drug you brought...
DAVID MORRIS: It's not a drug, it's an acid.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Things were pretty foggy, but I remember thinking that I mustn't scream. But the pain and the fear were so great. I, I don't think anybody could keep from screaming if they were really terrified. Unless...

LUCY STEVENS: Unless what, Dave?
DAVID MORRIS: Suppose a person could not possibly scream?
LUCY STEVENS: Well everybody can scream.
DAVID MORRIS: A deaf mute can't scream.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: I dropped by because I was a little worried about your wife, a shock like that can have pretty bad after effects, you know.
OLLIE HIGGINS: You know - I've been a little worried about her too, she hasn't eaten hardly a thing and she can't sleep. Ever since she saw that blood, she just roams around in the theater all night.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Did you hear what the little husband said to the big wife?
ISABEL: Is this another one of your oblique jokes?
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: He said 'why does the back door slam every time I come in the front door?'

ISABEL CHAPIN (making a toast): Here's to the Tingler, and your new wife.
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: I hope the new wife doesn't turn out to be as dangerous as the Tingler.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: The tingler exists in every human being, we now know. Look at that tingler, Dave. It's an ugly and dangerous thing - ugly because it's the creation of man's fear which is ugly too; dangerous because... because a frightened man is dangerous. We can't destroy it because we've removed it from its natural place.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: You killed her.
OLLIE HIGGINS: No I didn't...
DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Your wife was frightened to death, with this, and this.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN (in darkness after turning off house lights): Ladies and gentlemen, there is no cause for alarm. A young lady has fainted. She is being attended to by a doctor and is quite alright. So please remain seated. The movie will begin again right away. I repeat – there is no cause for alarm.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN (again in darkness): Ladies and gentlemen, please do not panic! But SCREAM! Scream for your lives! The Tingler is loose in this theater!

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Just because poison happens to exist, is no excuse to commit murder with it.

DR. WARREN CHAPIN: Ladies and gentlemen, just a word of warning. If any of you are not convinced that you have a tingler of your own, the next time you're frightened in the dark... don't scream.

Compiled by John M. Miller