RETURNSWITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS
31 Writers, 31 Days = Scare It Forward: The Novel
(Los Angeles, CA – October 26, 2010) - A little thing like being dead has never stopped iconic "King of the Gimmicks" horrormeister William Castle (The House on Haunted Hill; The Tingler) from enjoying Halloween.
castlepixcigar.jpgThis year the man who invented "Fright Breaks" for wussy movie goers is cooking up a new horror novel, Scare It Forward, with 30 writer friends each writing a chapter a day during the month of October. (Bill Castle has done this before; his first horror film, Macabre - starring Jim Backus in a very non-genial role - was based on a novel, "The Marble Forest," written by 13 San Francisco writers.)
With the creepy, genial charm of Hitchcock and the brassy ballyhoo of P.T. Barnum, William Castle freed the flat terrors behind the proscenium arch and turned them loose in the theatre ... from tush buzzing seats to flying skeletons, from $1000 life insurance policies to the "Ghost Viewer," Castle's gimmicks scared and vastly amused a generation of movie goers.
And now he's back. Scare It Forward is set on San Francisco Bay's picturesque Angel Island whose dark history ensnares a newly married couple in an ancient conflict between good and evil. Read if you dare.
Scare It Forward:
http://williamcastle.com/blog/scare-it-forward/
And since he's busy writing, Bill Castle is sending daughter Terry – who he says has a "genetic gift for gimmickry" - to Los Angeles to host a Halloween double-feature for Cinefamily's 3rd Annual Horror fest at The Silent Movie Theatre where, standing in line over 50 years ago, Bill Castle came up with the idea for ... The Tingler (and the world's very first LSD plot device).
William Castle made over forty B movies following a formula for box office success: low-budget chillers geared to the burgeoning boomers. The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts, Dr. Sardonicus, Strait-Jacket (scripted by Psycho's Robert Bloch), and Homicidal – which TIME magazine liked better than Psycho. Some called him a master of ballyhoo who shamelessly promoted his pictures with gimmicks like The Coward's Corner and Percepto seat buzzers. Gimmicks? What nonsense.
To read the latest messages from or leave a message for William Castle:
http://www.williamcastle.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=100001154126369
Twitter: @billcastle
William Castle's Shockers program info :
http://www.cinefamily.org/calendar/saturday_early.html#castle
The Silent Movie Theatre: 611 North Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90048
(323) 655-2520
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