Peeping Tom (1960, UK)

D. Michael Powell



Although now widely praised (like Hitchcock's psychological horror film counterpart Psycho (1960) - and the film's thematic counterpart Rear Window (1954)), this chilling and disturbing film about voyeurism, child abuse, and serial murder by honored film-maker Michael Powell was originally widely hated, universally loathed and denounced, especially by British critics.

They pronounced it amoral, perverted, necrophilic and trashy. It was called nauseating, depressing, and stench-filled -- and allegedly destroyed the career of its director. It suffered from the devastating reviews and was removed from theaters and excised by its distributor. This censored version was briefly available in trashy US theatres in 1962 and in selected arthouse venues, but then removed. Not until 1979 was a full-length version viewable -- at the New York Film Festival. Over time, it has been critically re-evaluated and vindicated, and is now universally regarded as a masterpiece.

It was a twisted portrayal of shy studio cameraman (and morbid serial killer) Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Boehm) who filmed call girls and then killed them with the metal-spiked leg of his hand-held camera tripod (with a mirror attached so that victims could watch themselves dying). In the film's shocking opening, filmed from the point-of-view of the voyeuristic camera's cross-haired viewfinder, a prostitute negotiated, walked upstairs, disrobed, and then gave a look of horror as she was murdered.

The infamous film with dark subject matter was criticized for its unsavory view of the perverted crimes perpetrated (and witnessed almost as "snuff films") upon unsuspecting female victims (a prostitute, an actress-dancer, and a nude model). In a subtle way, it appeared to implicate the voyeuristic viewer and force the audience to identify with the awful and perverse crimes committed by the madman. However, it masterfully told the back-story of how the monstrous killer had a very troubled childhood with a sadistic father (played by director Powell in a cameo) who filmed him for his studies on the physiology of fear in children, and contributed to his son's violent and conflicted subconscious (by observing his reactions to a lizard dropped on his bed, his mother's corpse, or his father's new young wife).