Plan9Crunch Scariest Scenes 2: The Tingler (1959) 

Some film debates devolve into "Is it Good or is it Important?" details - it's hard to claim THE TINGLER is 'important' but it was part of Wm Castle's "terror-arama" campaign. This of course wasn't so widespread and rumors would have it, but audiences acknowledged THEY could be physically victimized - just like rollercoasters and Halloween haunted houses. "Ya wanna git scared? Wanna have a thrill?" It's also a rather bizarre side-step for Vincent Price who, like his HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, has him playing a relative innocent among other bad characters in both stories, and he's not so innocent himself - he's ultimately pulling some strings (uh... or reeling them in. ahem). For me, this wins more Important Film points than quality of the film or the story.

I wonder how original audiences compared the Tingler's in-theatre appearance to THE BLOB's in-theater appearance?

Technically, at the end of the day what is scary is subjective, so unless you're going to pull a dogmatic "only what I find scary counts as scary" position, then you have to admit our position of it being a worthwhile scary scene to analyze is valid, lest your negative opinion is also invalid. Now, what we are doing here is we are going through the scene's progression because there is a progression and there are techniques used here that are used to great effect in many scary scenes (music flow, increasing severity of scares from mundane to surreal and jump scares thrown in throughout). You are free to believe what you will believe but according to horror scare tropes, this scene emerges pretty well upon close inspection. Now I'm not sure you thought of this, but attacking the actress and director solely because you didn't like a scene they made is both uncouth and opens a pretty high burden of proof on your part. First of all, directors are responsible for envisioning scenes, especially the ones with the gimmicky money shot, so technically speaking most of the criticisms you would have (I must remind you, your comment here was so vague and exaggerative, I cannot in good faith even guess your actual criticisms) should fall on William Castle not the actress. To actually blame the actress on this short clip, what you are really saying is "the director is terrible at moving the camera but good enough at inspiring and capturing performances that it's her fault her performance is bad," which means by definition he cannot be the worst director since there are some that can't work with actors. Need I remind you we are not upholding this director as the best one; we have our own choice comments against him in the video. However, you are making the claim that he is the worst. I don't know what to do with that. I either have to not take you seriously and agree with your sentiment for different better expressed reasons or try to back up your halfbaked claim with evidence to reach your conclusion. As for the actress, I don't mean this to be unhelpful, but you really should try to play an anxious deaf mute ambiguously drugged woman getting scared to death by her husband who knows what buttons of hers to press before you judge this so unfavorably. I say that because you're not presenting evidence of poor acting. If you could point to a moment or two of her corpsing the camera, I could work with that, but you've given me nothing to address except opinion and hyperbolic personal attacks on the people involved We at Plan9Crunch appreciate these films enough to highlight the merits and flaws as we can see them and argue them efficiently. I don't want you speaking so negatively about the people we highlight unless you can give a reasoned argument as to why you're correct "Worst actress ever!! Worst direction ever!!" Anyone here at Plan9Crunch could walk you through this scene and point out what effective and less effective moments of horror, suspense and humor are occuring in these scenes to disprove that assessment. (We like Cult Films here, so we'll probably cover ones like Troll 2, not pretending they're masterpieces but bringing up the merits to give you something to think about). In four sentences you've given me far less to think about than this entire scene. Because of your hyperbolic attacks, you've conveyed any actual logic far worse than the deaf mute possibly drugged character in this scene. Is that cause for me to call you the worst commenter ever? It actually isn't, because that comes with a high burden of proof. Do you see now why you're not being constructive? You don't need to agree with us, just be more wise in how you disagree, and if you can help it don't attack the people who made these scenes we enjoy watching so much