Fainting Patrons: Castle Did It First
Even though the audience member who fainted at a screening of the new movie “127 Hours” this week didn’t do so because of the James Franco flick’s amputation scene, all these reports of people fainting or not being able to watch the gristle remind me of the publicity stunts pulled by director William Castle in the 1950s. One of his horror flicks (it wasn’t “Macabre”) even went so far as to station a nurse in the lobby, to tend to patrons who just couldn’t take all the onscreen tension.
