"'The Tingler,' topping the Columbia double bill, could use a little gore, even with those palpitating ads. For some time producer William Castle has been serving some of the worst, dullest little horror entries ever to snake into movie houses. This one, which he also directed, is about a rubbery-looking lobster. This object, labeled a 'tingler,' is supposedly a tangible mass of flesh incorporating the zone of human fear and, we are told, residing in each of us. Anyway, Vincent Price, as a scientist, extracts it from the spine of poor Judith Evelyn, in the casting of the year-a deaf mute cashier at a theatre showing silent movies. The bedraggled 'tingler' slithers around terrified victims. It failed to arouse the customer seated in front of this viewer yesterday - a fearless lad who was sound asleep, snoring. Just keep us awake, Mr. Castle."
Howard Thompson, The New York Times, March 10, 1960.

"The Tingler, right down to its bright red corpuscles, indelibly stamps producer William Castle as an imaginative, often ingenious, showman. The film abounds in hokum, camouflaged in science, and it has been successfully gimmicked to insure maximum exploitation... Almost staggeringly effective is a hairraising sequence in which a bathtub full of blood blares out in all its rich sanguinary color amid the remaining blacks and whites."
Ron, Variety.

"Preposterous but original shocker; coroner Price discovers that fear causes a creepy-crawly creature to materialize on people's spines; it can be subdued only by screaming. This is the infamous picture that got moviegoers into the spirit with vibrating gizmos under selected theater seats! – a gimmick director/producer Castle billed as 'Percepto.' Also noteworthy as likely the earliest film depicting an LSD trip. One critical sequence is in color."
Leonard Maltin, Classic Movie Guide.

"Despite Castle's ponderous, pedestrian direction, in which everything is spelled out 1-2-3, The Tingler overall is one of his most entertaining films. It's silly, sure, but that's part of its charm. No one else has ever made a story like this, and the chutzpah of its premise is almost breathtaking. ...Furthermore, some of the acting is very entertaining. Price doesn't have quite as slick an opponent in Patricia Cutts as he did in Carol Ohmart in House on Haunted Hill, but they deliver the waspish Robb White dialogue with infectious glee. Price is clearly enjoying himself in these catty exchanges. ...Philip Coolidge is required to be mousy and henpecked, while still having a shade of possible menace, which he accomplishes quite well. Judith Evelyn is good in her mime performance as the ill-fated Martha; her angular, coarse features and popping eyes express her terror well. ...White's screenplay is lumpy and really has no plot at all. Price wants a tingler; Coolidge wants his wife dead. Both get what they want. The film is a horror movie with SF elements, but structured as a 1940s-type murder melodrama. The attempt on Price's life by his wife seems like an effort to add running time."
Bill Warren, Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties.

"The sheer effrontery of this piece of hokum is enjoyable in itself, while the script and direction follow Castle's usual format of laying down a persuasive horrific exposition and then, at the right moment, parodying it outrageously..
Monthly Film Bulletin.

"Another gimmicked-up fright flick from William Castle, with theaters back then wired to give audiences a gentle 'tingle' at proper moments. Without the hokum, though, this is one of Castle's better attempts at the macabre, earmarked with a distinctive tongue-in-cheek flavor. ...Best sequence comes when the 'tingler' is loose in a movie theater showing TOL'ABLE DAVID and everyone runs like hell. There is also a scene of a hand coming up out of a tub of blood originally filmed in color, but TV prints are all in black and white."
John Stanley, The Creature Features Movie Guide

"A cultish chiller that acquired some fame on its original US release when Castle wired up the cinema seats with electrical buzzers to give his audiences a little extra shock value. The plot is ingeniously ludicrous: a doctor (Price) discovers that fear breeds a centipede-like organism in the base of the spine. The organism can kill if its grip is not released, and only a scream can do that. So the good doctor experiments on a deaf-mute, the wife of a cinema-owner who only shows silent movies. Castle was a real Hollywood showman, a downmarket Hitchcock whose work shows considerable flair. The scenes in the movie theatre are very striking, and the way the doctor torments his victim - by providing her with visual shocks (a kind of acid trip) and by causing running water from a tap to turn into blood (black-and-white gave way to colour here) - is clearly the work of a sick mind. Castle recalled, 'I was asked by somebody at Yale whether The Tingler was my statement against the establishment and whether it was my plea against war and poverty. I said, Who knows?'."
Adrian Turner, TimeOut Film Guide.

Compiled by John M. Miller