As the Summer saunters ever so slowly out the door, and Autumn cautiously and calmly infiltrates our yards and snippid, auburn evenings, our ever-cooling thoughts turn to horror. October is just around the corner (by which I mean “three weeks away”), and every single cinephile who is even the least bit responsible is already planning out how they will fill the hallowed Halloween month with an unending stream of horror movies. Fright early and fright often is the credo of October, and it will take a lot of hard work, advice, and guidance to sift through the usual horror icons to come up with something memorable.
Check Out: The Weird World of William Castle
Which is why Now Streaming will guide you through the William Castle films that are currently and immediately available through your ready-made monthly streaming services. William Castle is, for you poor souls who may not know about him, America’s finest showman since P.T. Barnum. He is the director of numerous fun, wicked horror movies, and the orchestrator of the most beautiful in-theater gimmicks ever conceived of by any filmmaker; this is the man who thought to sell life insurance policies to audience members, should they die of fright during the movie. For The Tingler, he famously wired theater chairs to vibrate, making people literally jump out of their seats in fear.
Castle’s filmography is long and eclectic, but there are a few choice cuts available on streaming services right now. Go for it. You’ll only make yourself better.
House on Haunted Hill (Amazon Prime/Hulu)
Allied Artists
The legendary Vincent Price stars in this 1959 haunted house picture about an eccentric millionaire (God bless them) who invites a team of saps over to his ghostly mansion for a ghost party. Whoever can stay the night wins a pile of cash. Inevitably, ghosts begin appearing. Are they fakes made up by Price, real ghosts, or perhaps even reasl ghosts in cahoots with Price. House on Haunted Hill was originally released in “Emergo,” which entailed a life-size skeleton being hoisted above the audience on a pulley. I have yet to see any modern theaters try a stunt so ambitious.
You may not be able to recreate that particular effect at home, but you can at enjoy the young-boy-at-a-carnival ghost story chills that Castle was so expert at. House on Haunted Hill has been repeatedly mocked by the people over at Rifftrax, and can be commonly found on cheap-ass DVDs at drugstores. The streaming services above, however, have cleaner, better-looking renditions.
The remake isn’t bad. This one is better.
The Spirit is Willing (Amazon Prime)
Paramount
The Spirit is Willing, from 1967, is one of Castle lesser-known films, and is a true oddity. It’s a film that, as stated on the poster, deals with the biggest problem of our time: The sex lives of ghosts. A teenage boy and his parents move into a haunted house (natch), but the ghosts prove to be randier than expected. The Spirit is Willing is a comedy through-and-through, but strikes a totally strange tone, somewhere between a sex farce and a wholesome beach party romp. The film stars Sid Caesar, Vera Miles, and a super-attractive actress named Jill Townsend, playing three roles. If you’re a fan of colorful, late-’60s comedies, and you need a deep cut, this one will certainly do.
13 Ghosts (YouTube)
Columbia
A broke family moves into a house, which turns out to be haunted (sensing a pattern here?), and they are essentially tormented by the ghosts who live there. It’s as fun, weird, little-kid-scary, and creative as most Castle joints made during his heyday (this one came out in 1960). The funnest part, however, is that you actually can recreate the gimmick from 13 Ghosts at home. Originally released in “Illusion-O,” theaters showing 13 Ghosts provided people with red and blue eye filters that would either allow them to see the ghosts, or to cover them up. If you have a pair of regular, old-fashioned red-and-blue anaglyphic 3-D glasses, then you can play along at home. I’ve done it. It works great.
Don’t watch the remake. The remake is not good.
Not Streaming: The Tingler (1959)
Surprisingly, Castle’s best film, 1959’s The Tingler – that legend of the vibrating buttocks – is not currently available on any streaming service. Perhaps the flick is just a bit too odd for most people, as the premise boggles the mind. Vincent Price stars as a doctor conducting illegal fear experiments on executed prisoners. He finds that a living, separate entity called a Tingler grows rapidly around the base of people’s spines when they are scared. When they scream, the beast vanishes. Price uses LSD (!) and other cruel experiments in an attempt to harvest one of these creates. To what end, who can say? It’s a bonkers, wonderful film that exemplifies what cheesy, publicly-attended matinee experiences are all about: screaming out loud in front of strangers, and discovering that being scared can be fun.
The Tingler can be found easily enough on DVD, at any rate. It had yet to rear its insectoid head elsewhere.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
