In 1959, director William Castle, the master of movie gimmickry, came up with a doozy of a trick for his latest and most literal shocker, “The Tingler,” in which Vincent Price portrays a surgeon who discovers a centipede-like parasite attached to the human spine.
Select seats in a few cinemas in large cities were wired with buzzers to "tingle" moviegoers during a scene in the film in which an extracted Tingler gets loose inside a theater. The campaign that promoted this gimmick offered a challenge. "Do you have the guts to sit in this chair?" an advertisement asked, in a caption above a picture of a theater seat.
Motion picture technology has evolved in many ways in the decades since "The Tingler," but the mission of movie theaters remains the same:
To put butts in the seats. And one way to do that is to give those butts a jolt — and a rock and a rumble.
To that end, the spirit of showmanship lives on at Malco Theatres Inc., which last week transformed 63 seats in three auditoriums at the Paradiso cinema into "D-BOX" seats that literally shake, rattle and roll, to borrow a phrase from Memphis' most famous movie lover, Elvis Presley.
As the Malco website states, "D-BOX seats use motion and haptic effects synchronized with the action on screen for a more immersive experience." So, when Spider-Man swings on his web through the skyscraper canyons of New York, the seat tilts. When a detective rides a train, the seat vibrates. When a mutant unleashes a telekinetic force field, the seat judders.
“This is a complement to all of the things that we’re already doing,” said Wes Lunsford, a Malco senior vice president who specializes in technology. “We’ve got IMAX, Dolby Atmos, laser projection, recliners. This adds a fourth dimension on top of that.”
"It's an amenity," said David Tashie, Malco president and chief operating officer. "It's not for the old-school purist who wants to sit there quietly. It's like a theme park ride."
In fact, D-BOX's "haptic" technology, which adds what the Quebec-based company calls "a physical dimension to the action onscreen," is commonly found in amusement park attractions that simulate such experiences as driving a race car or paddling whitewater rapids. It's also applied to the training simulators used by trucking firms and heavy equipment manufacturers. ("Haptic," according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, refers to "the sense of touch.")
D-BOX seats became active Sept. 4 at the Paradiso and the Malco Razorback Cinema in Fayetteville. The Collierville Cinema and Arkansas' Fort Smith Cinema should begin offering D-BOX seats by Sept. 19. If audiences respond positively, Malco will add more seats to more theaters
The D-BOX lineup at the Paradiso for the week of Sept. 12 includes "The Odyssey," "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," "Practical Magic 2," "Insidious: Out of the Further," "Runner" and "Hope," a Korean monster movie. As with 3-D and IMAX, D-BOX seats are more expensive than standard seats, with D-BOX adding a $7 "surcharge." So an evening ticket to the D-BOX "Spider-Man" at the Paradiso costs $21.75, while a standard "Spider-Man" ticket is $14.75. Malco, which purchased and installed its D-BOX equipment, splits a portion of the "surcharge" revenue with the company.
Some recent patrons said the extra expense was worthwhile; they gave the experience a shaken thumbs up.
“It was very much fun,” said Oliva Ghosh, 33, a scientist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, after a “Spider-Man” show. “I would like to go again.”
“We had never experienced this before, and it was just something we wanted to try,” said her friend, Khadija Banu, 39, also a St. Jude scientist, who perhaps needed a little escapism (her published papers include “Functional Dissection of Proliferating-Cell Nuclear Antigens”). “We really enjoyed it.”
The Paradiso's 63 D-BOX seats (to date) represent a small percentage of the 16-screen multiplex's 1,300 total seats. In the "Spider-Man" auditorium, for example, 22 seats — plus a handicapped-accessible D-BOX seat at a lower level — occupy two rows in the center of the auditorium. As in most of the Paradiso's theaters, dividers screen off the rows; this is crucial for D-BOX, so patrons in standard seats won't be distracted by the D-BOX action.
D-BOX seats are recliners that resemble standard theater seats, but each one contains its own relatively wide armrests. Each seat is situated on an electro-mechanical "actuator" that is synchronized with the movie projection to move the seat with the action onscreen. A small control panel in the armrest allows a patron to adjust the "intensity" of the movement (you can turn it up to 3, if not 11), or to turn it off completely. A seat is not activated until a ticket for that seat is purchased, so a person who buys a less-expensive standard ticket and then sneaks into a D-BOX seat won't experience the haptic effect.
Founded in 1998, D-BOX Technologies began encoding movies for mainstream cinemas in 2009. As with a 3-D movie, a D-BOX-ready movie is designed in collaboration with the production company and studio, with haptic encoders synchronizing the frequency, intensity and variety of effects. Now, most major action and horror movies, as well as many kids' movies, are available in D-BOX.
"We've been looking at this for years, and we decided now's the time," said Tashie, pointing out that D-BOX arrives at the end of a summer season that set a box-office record, with ticket sales in North America of $4.76 billion, thanks to such expected blockbusters as "The Odyssey," the latest "Spider-Man" and "Toy Story 5," and such surprise successes as "Backrooms" and "Obsession."
Said Lunsford, in a statement released by D-BOX: “We continue to look for ways to enhance the theatrical experience and give our guests compelling reasons to see movies on the big screen."
John Beifuss is an entertainment writer at The Commercial Appeal. Contact him at john.beifuss@commercialappeal.com.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Malco adds new D-BOX seats. Why they're 'like a theme park ride'
