Outside a late-1950s theater sits a hearse. Inside, nurses in white uniforms stand by, and every patron receives a $1,000 Lloyd’s of London life insurance policy valid only if they die of fright during the film. This episode explores the life of William Castle, the showman who staged that circus for Macabre after mortgaging his house to finance it. Orphaned by eleven in New York, he was rewired at thirteen by a stage production of Dracula, where he studied the audience as closely as Bela Lugosi.

The conversation follows his fabricated German play, the fake telegram branding his lead actress as the girl who said no to Hitler, and the swastikas he painted on his own theater to sell tickets. It then covers his years under Harry Cohn at Columbia, the run of gimmicks including Emergo, Percepto, Illusion-O, the Punishment Poll, the Fright Break, and Coward’s Corner, his frustrated bid to direct Rosemary’s Baby, and his influence on Hitchcock’s decision to self-finance Psycho.

• How a pulley-rigged skeleton over the audience became target practice for teenagers
• Why military surplus airplane de-icers ended up wired under theater seats for The Tingler
• How Coward’s Corner used yellow footprints, a spotlight, and a nurse to cut refunds to about one percent
• Why Paramount refused to let Castle direct the property he had mortgaged his house to acquire
• How John Waters and Robert Zemeckis carried his playbook forward