The Dark Seance: You Are Now Insured Against Death by Fright!

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a stentorious voice declaims over footage of a ticking clock at the beginning of William Castle’s Macabre, “for the next hour and fifteen minutes, you will be shown things so terrifying that the management of this theater is deeply concerned for your welfare. Therefore, we request that each of you assume the responsibility of taking care of your neighbor. If anyone near you becomes uncontrollably frightened, will you please notify the management so that medical attention can be rushed to their aid.”

In the movie theaters of 1958, Castle’s own voice accompanied a clock ticking down the seconds. “Ladies and gentlemen, when the clock reaches sixty seconds, you will be insured by Lloyds of London for one thousand dollars against death by fright during Macabre. Lloyds of London sincerely hopes none of you will collect. But just in case, isn’t it comforting to know that your loved ones are protected? You are now insured against death by fright!”

It was the first time William Castle had been given free reign to do the kinds of gimmicks he had been trying to sell since even before he broke into Hollywood – and he only had free reign because he had produced, financed, and directed the picture himself.

“It all began on a dark and stormy night – thunder, lightning, rain,” Castle recounts in his memoir, Step Right Up! He and his wife Ellen were going to the movies to see Diabolique, a 1955 French thriller that would inspire more than just Castle’s Macabre; the success of Diabolique has also been associated with everything from the Italian I Vampiri to Hitchcock’s own Psycho.

In his memoir, Castle recounts the “long line of umbrellas with people underneath – all waiting to see Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique.” Curious about the turnout in such crummy weather, Castle asks the young couple in line in front of him, who “couldn’t have been over sixteen years old” what has made them willing to stand in line in the rain to see the picture.

“My friends told me it really scares the shit out of you,” the boy replies. “That’s what I heard, too,” his date agrees excitedly. “It was an amazing phenomenon,” Castle recounts, “hundreds of youngsters waiting patiently to have the ‘shit scared out of them.'”

It was the enthusiasm of that audience, as much as the movie itself, that inspired Castle to mortgage his Beverly Hills house in order to finance his first movie as producer and director. Macabre cost an estimated $90,000 to shoot – and wound up bringing in more than $5 million. But it didn’t do it alone.

For years, Castle had been trying to get studios in Hollywood to bite on some of his gimmick ideas. Now, he had his opportunity to do it his way, and he came up with something big – an insurance policy, which would pay out to the beneficiaries of anyone who died of fright while watching Macabre.

Because nothing like it had ever been done before, Castle initially had difficulty getting traction with his insurance scheme, but eventually managed to make it work through Lloyds of London. Insuring everyone in the world was a practical impossibility so, instead, the agency insured Castle himself. Should anyone die of fright during the film, Castle would receive $1,000 from Lloyds of London, which he would then pay to their beneficiaries himself.

Always one to “go big or go home,” Castle didn’t stop there. He also hired nurses to attend audiences in some theaters, and even engaged in a publicity stunt in Minneapolis in which he, himself, was sealed in a casket in the lobby – only to become trapped inside until the movie was over. On top of all that, theatergoers at some showings received a small badge that said, “I’m no chicken. I saw Macabre.”

It was these gimmicks, as much as the movie itself, that helped Macabre rake in a whopping fifty-six times its budget at the box office – and Castle knew it. “Allied Artists wanted another picture immediately and the exhibitors (theater owners) wanted another Castle gimmick,” and so the era of William Castle’s gimmick pictures had begun.

Nor was he the only one. The success of Macabre – and its insurance gimmick – prompted several other studios to try the same thing. According to Castle’s memoir, even while he was still shopping the picture around to producers, Warner Bros. opened a movie using the same gimmick, even borrowing the layout of the policies themselves and simply swapping Lloyds of London for Warner Bros.

Castle threatened to sue, until studio head Jack Warner himself called and apologized, laying the blame at the feet of an “eager-beaver” in the publicity department. Warner offered to buy Macabre at its $90,000 production price as a peace offering, but Castle turned him down, eventually selling it to Allied Artists for $150,000 plus a generous cut of the profits.

Released later the same year as Macabre, The Screaming Skull also opens with a voiceover. “The Screaming Skull is a motion picture that reaches its climax in shocking horror. Its impact is so terrifying that it may have an unforeseen effect – it may kill you. Therefore, its producers feel they must assure free burial services to anyone who dies of fright while seeing The Screaming Skull.”

As the narrator speaks, the camera pans across a coffin which gradually opens, displaying a card reading “Reserved for You.” Unlike Castle, the producers of The Screaming Skull never actually contacted an insurance company or anyone else – and no one tried to cash in on the free burial, notwithstanding one extensive sketch in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

The majority of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations of the 1960s didn’t engage with such gimmicks, but they did often feature the same kinds of confrontational ballyhoo that William Castle employed. “You are there in the sudden darkness when the heartbeat starts,” shouted the posters for The Premature Burial (1962). “Will you be the first to crack?”

For The Pit and the Pendulum in 1961, the influence of Castle’s gimmick films is apparent. One image of a theater marquee showing The Pit and the Pendulum features a recreation of the eponymous pendulum itself, hooked to the top of the marquee so that it can swing back and forth, with the words, “No one admitted while the pendulum is swinging.”

Pit and the Pendulum even borrowed Castle’s insurance gimmick, with certain posters offering $10,000 to “the first person who dies of fright while seeing this film.”

To the best of my knowledge, no one ever collected on any of these policies besides the filmmakers, studios, and theaters themselves, who saw huge returns on Castle’s off-the-wall gimmick.

“We trust there have been no casualties and that you all are in the best of health, but…“