DVD: The William Castle Film Collection

William Castle is a one-of-a-kind filmmaker who created a body of work that has as many imitators as admirers. Castle was a flamboyant showman, providing his movies a singular kind of promotional push that even today guarantee most of them cult status. Films like Gremlins 2 and Matinee (both directed by Joe Dante) are tributes to Castle and involve some of the cinematic tricks he's known for.
For instance, in The Tingler (1959) certain seats in the audience were wired to vibrate at a pivotal time in the movie. The tingler monster actually gets loose in the very theater where it would be playing. For 13 Ghosts (1960), a black and white film, the ghost sequences were tinted blue with ghostly silhouettes and attendees given a card with a red and blue gel viewer. You look through the red and you see the images, you look through the blue and the image is erased. (The viewer is similar to older style 3-D glasses with red and blue lenes.) While both of these films are great fun to watch I wouldn't put them on the same level as say The Tingler to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or compare 13 Ghosts to the superior The Haunting. Yet this revels the true nature of cult cinema. The films of William Castle have a tongue-in-cheek humor mixed with cinematic tricks that break the fourth wall.
In Homicidal (1961) Castle gives the audience a "fright break." The action stops and a clock, counting down 45 seconds, appears letting the audience know how much time left to leave the theater if they don't want to be scared. Similar graphics are used in recent films like Tony Scott's Man on Fire or Gasper Noe's I Stand Alone.
The William Castle Film Collection contains eight films plus a documentary, Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story, that details Castle's illustrious career. The films include The Tingler, 13 Frightened Girls, 13 Ghosts, Homicidal, Strait-Jacket, The Old Dark House, Mr. Sardonicus, and Zotz! The latter film is basically a kid's film about an ancient magical coin. However one sequence where the hero uses the coin to slow time obviously was an influence on the rooftop confrontation in The Matrix involving bullet time. Zotz! will charm with its political satirical masquerading as a kid's fantasy flick.
Castle had the moxie to buy the rights to Rosemary's Baby before it became a best seller, which forced Paramount Pictures to give him producer credit. Looking over a list of his other credits Castle has at least another eight films that would complete a set if another DVD series was issued. This box set is smartly packaged and among the crunk extras are a couple of episodes of Ghost Story, an early 70s television show Castle produced.