William Castle (1914-1977) was known as the "THE KING OF BALLYHOO" and was responsible for many of the weirdest and tackiest gimmicks of the 1950s and 1960s, including give-away life insurance policies (just in case you die from fright while watching THE OLD DARK HOUSE) or providing a nurse, on duty in the lobby, to calm and treat viewers of HOMICIDAL. Two of his more elaborate stunts were the use of the Percepto process for THE TINGLER (1959) in which random theatre seats were electrically charged to stimulate audience panic and Illusion-O for his production of 13 GHOSTS in 1960. The audience was issued individual "Ghost Viewers" in order to spot the ghost images on screen. Often the gimmick was more exciting than the film, but his films never lost money due to his ability to introduce and sell his work in a Hitchcock manner.