William Castle: The Low-Budget Alfred Hitchcock

Two men walk into separate movie theaters, on different days, and see the same French horror/suspense film. No, it's not the beginning of joke. It is the beginning of a true story. The movie was the French classic Les Diaboliques. (Not to be confused with the really bad Sharon Stone remake of nearly the same name.) The men were named Alfred Hitchcock and William Castle and both would be inspired by the film to make their own horror flicks. For Alfred Hitchcock that film would become Psycho and it would be the last totally successful movie of his long career. For William Castle that movie would be Macabre (notice the French sensibility) and it would mark his first entry into the shock market after already having built a reputation for funny-scary horror films.

Like Alfred Hitchcock, William Castle understood the commercial value of gimmicks. He followed Hitchcock's lead in making himself as famous as his movies. And in his case, he was more famous than most of his stars. Castle took to appearing at the beginning of his low budget Hitchcockian thrillers, acting as an almost an introductory emcee. 1960s drive-in audiences could just as easily recognize Castle's trademark profile featuring his enormous phallic cigar as they could recognize Alfred Hitchcock's fat silhouette. What really set Castle apart and made him a cult figure, however, were the gimmicks he thought up to sell his little movies. Long before Les Diaboliques, Castle had established himself as a maker of movies that, while perhaps not classics, were nonetheless more enjoyable than most the dreck Hollywood was producing in the last 1950s and early 60s. (Needless to say, a William Castle movie is one of the cures for those "nothing on TV again" moments that pop up more and more often these days.)

People of a certain age-a few years older than myself, unfortunately-will remember William Castle's "fright break." In his movie Homicidal, which is often considered Castle's Psycho, there is a scene at the end during which a character is about to lose a head and go to pieces, literally. At this point the movie stops and there is a Fright Break. This is just enough time for all the squeamish members of the audience to leave the theater before the axe falls. Of course, the beheading is entirely ridiculous and utterly unconvincing, but who cares? Castle eventually became known for his gimmicks rather than his movies, and that's a shame because he made some really clever films, especially given his mediocre budgets. For instance, The Tingler is an exceptionally fun film that contains some genuinely creepy moments. Of course, it was probably even creepier watching this movie in a theater in which several seats were wired to give small electric jolts in perfecting timing to the most intense scenes. For his extraordinarily bizarre movie Mr. Sardonicus (which played an enormous part in the plotline of an entire arc of the Wiseguy series, believe it or not), audience members got to vote on the punishment given to the villain. He would have insurance agents outside the theater peddling "fright coverage" for anyone who died of fright while watching his movies.

William Castle was a showman, but he was also a truly creative filmmaker. Today his little low-budget extravaganzas hold up much better than the post-Psycho films that Alfred Hitchcock was making at the same time. You can find most of Castle's movies on Netflix, complete with many of his gimmicks intact. It's not quite the same thing as being hooked up to an electrified chair, but you can take care of that part yourself.