HOLLYWOOD’s second-best-known director of the 1950s after Alfred Hitchcock, William Castle was a consummate showman who promoted his low-budget horror movies with gimmicks that were sometimes more memorable than the films.

Castle had been directing B-movies since 1943, but he finally broke through with “Macabre” (1958), which he ballyhooed by giving patrons $1,000 life insurance policies from Lloyds of London.

After the success of “House on Haunted Hill” (1959) — during which an inflatable glow-in-the-dark skeleton attached to a wire floated over audiences — Castle was signed as a director-producer at Columbia Pictures, where he generally appeared before his films’ credits.

All eight of his films for that studio, along with a wonderful full-length documentary on Castle’s career, are collected in “The William Castle Film Collection,” out today on DVD.

“The Tingler” (1959), a preposterous Vincent Price thriller about creatures attached to the spines of people who can’t scream, is enormous fun. It was originally exhibited in “Percepto” — some seats in theaters had buzzers attached that were activated when audiences were invited to scream.

A 45-second “fright break” with a ticking clock was built into “Homicidal” (1961), a shameless but not bad knockoff of “Psycho” centering on a murderous transsexual. Audiences could leave and receive a full refund — if they stood in a cardboard booth labeled the “Coward’s Corner.”

The interactive gimmick in “Mr. Sardonicus” (1961) was a “punishment poll” for the title villain, while audiences at “13 Ghosts” (1960) were given a hand-held cardboard viewer with strips of red and blue cellophane that would allow them to see or “remove” the ghosts.

Castle decided to dispense with the gimmicks for his first attempt at a big-budget movie, “Strait-Jacket” with Joan Crawford — but changed his mind at the last minute and handed out cardboard axes to moviegoers.

Ironically, Castle did not direct the biggest success of his career, “Rosemary’s Baby.”

Paramount signed Castle to a lucrative contract after he acquired the right to Ira Levin’s novel, but studio brass insisted that Roman Polanski direct the 1968 classic. It was still billed as “a William Castle production.”

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