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the audience applauded

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Historically, PEEPING TOM is a presciently sympathetic take on sexual perversity that torpedoed Michael Powell's career, thanks to islanders' true-blue insularity, but has earned its overdue cachet through years when it reaches a wider audience around the globe, partially because its then-controversial topic now can be liberally appreciated as an incisive meta-reflection of cinema itself. Watching films is a de facto act of voyeurism, albeit a passive one, a prerequisite a spectator might subliminally intend to overlook when its more overtly entertaining value is in full swing, and in PEEPING TOM, Powell, drawing on Leo Marks deviant if dumbed-down script, formulates a lurid mise-en-scène of a fear-collector-turned-murderer young cinematographer Mark Lewis (Böhm, of SISSI trilogy fame), who is (sexually) obsessed with mortal fear engendered by his female victims when their last breaths begin to dawn on them, and he films their last moments and savors them in his solitary dark room. Also, he has a unique way to magnify their terror, which Powell tactfully reveals in the climax, as an answer to the film's innovative killer's viewfinder's POV in its prologue. Albeit its slasher (avant la lettre) template (suspense and horror is downplayed in favor of a manner of poised characterization), PEEPING TOM looks directly into the psychological cause of Mark's perversity, a child guinea-pig of his senseless scientist father, grows up in a disturbed, recorded and wired environment that substantially alters his perception and psyche. Critically, by dint of Böhm's taciturn, sensitive and inner-struggling performance, Powell pegs Mark as both a victimizer and a victim, an approach doesn't fall in line with moral rigidity but sequentially humanizes our monster, particularly, by pairing him with a guileless if somewhat cheeky girl-next-door Helen Stephens (a feisty Massey, holds our attention in her brilliant reaction shots when the crunch demands), to whom he might have a slender chance of a normal relationship if he can suppress his morbid proclivity (at one point, she even successfully persuades him to have a date with her without his phantom limb, the 16mm movie camera), yet that faint, precious chink of warmth is inevitably diminished after his another wanton surge, he has no alternative but to exact his final act to seal his preordained seal, and simultaneously, sate his persisting fixation.Apart from Massey's counterpoising presence of innocuousness, other two supporting performances are also noteworthy, famed ballerina Moira Shearer (in her third and last collaboration with Powell), as a clueless stand-in Vivian, obliviously twirls around Mark as he carefully prepare for her impending quietus, makes a striking example of a beauty's tragic end, which is sheer in contrast to Maxine Audley's steely lucidity as Helen's blind mother, who is luckily spared for her visual unresponsiveness, a thinly veiled metaphor of an aging/unassuming woman's vanishing sex appeal (she is only three years older than Shearer).Deeply steeped in its counter-genre variegated shades and musician Brian Easdale's compelling virtuosity and cadenza, to all intents and purposes, PEEPING TOM thrives as a thought-provoking tall tale whose message might be well ahead of its time, but in terms of cinematic grandeur, it is a trailblazer that often imitated but rarely eclipsed.

This slasher flick may have historical significance, but I found it disappointing. As the slasher, Bohm's portrayal is simply too placid to engage interest. He's all hectic activity overseen up by an expressionless demeanor. Maybe that makes for an interesting case study for those who speculate. After all, Mark's about the last word in emotional repression. Plus, that penetrating cane that rises over his victims amounts to a telling bit of symbolism. Nonetheless, the overall result adds up to turgid cinema that failed to involve me in his predicament. To me, the best scenes are the movie sets-- the frazzled nerves, the tyrannical director. Such organized chaos appears a long way from Hollywood glamorville. Too bad Helen's blind mom (Audley) wasn't made the culprit. She projects the real depth that's a needed contrast to the wooden Bohm.. Also, there's plain-faced Anna Massey as Helen. Her looks and manner convey a poignancy that injects some suspense when she connects with the serial killer. (Massey also resembles Pat Hitchcock, Alfred's daughter, who was also doing cameo roles at the time.) Anyway, it's possible I saw a poorly edited version of what's reputedly a much-edited movie (IMDB). Nonetheless, judging from Bohm's uninvolving performance, the results appear unfortunately overrated, despite the hype.

For the true horror movie fanatic, there are certain movies that are required viewing as they had such an impact on the horror landscape that one cannot truly understand the history of the genre without experiencing those films. PEEPING TOM is most certainly in that category. The year 1960 was a pivotal moment in horror's evolution as the releases of this movie, along with PSYCHO and BLACK Sunday, had a profound mark on horror and clearly delineate the change from the old "monster movie" to modern horror.A museum piece does not a entertaining view make, though, and there are many movies that film historians will tell you are landmark films, but may not entertain a modern audience any longer. So, the question is when we put the opinions of the film snobs aside and the importance of this movie, is it actually a good movie? I am happy to say that it is, but in truth I didn't appreciate enough on my first view, but after seeing it again after a few years, I truly enjoyed the movie.This movie is not going to deliver a lot of kill scenes, gore, or "scares". It's just not that sort of horror. It's often called the British PSYCHO, though I don't feel it's fair to consistently compare the movies. PSYCHO is, in some ways, a much more deliberate horror movie, while this film is understated. Yes, we get some murders, done in fabulous style (a style that Mario Bava almost certainly imitated in later films), but most of the movie is what a film critic might call a "character study". The movie's depth and interest comes from the main character, Mark's, background, his history and the actor's's devotion to implementing a rich emotional feel to the character, making him a sympathetic, damaged person, more than a "monster" or "psycho".Clearly, a large part of the theme of this movie is voyeurism, which plays out in many ways. We learn of Mark's father, a scientist who used Mark in his experiments on fear, documenting his life in sight and sound in an ultimate voyeurism. Mark work in his, in his off time, making girlie photos that are sold in the news stand. Of course, Mark's obsession with his camera, and the way that he films his murders works as a double expression of voyeurism. Mark, of course, is a voyeur, watching his work over and over through the safety of his lens, but we, the audience, as also made to be voyeurs through the POV camera angles that are used throughout the movie. This is, perhaps, why audiences were so revolted by this movie, which has no more violence or sex that anything Hammer was doing at the time, but it's that finger pointing at the audience, making us feel "dirty" for watching these crimes from our point of view that may have turned so many away.The movie is gorgeous to watch. The rich, saturated technicolor gives it a vibrant look that is no longer seen in movies and, I for one, appreciate it greatly. It makes the movie feel as if it's in another world, like the document of a deviant from Oz. I've been exposed to plenty of classics that bored me to death, but this is one horror classic that is well worth the time.

This film is not a thriller but more of an experience in which you put the pot of water on the stove but remove it before it begins to boil furiously; a slow-burner, if you will. What really matters is the aura that cloaks the male protagonist Mark. There is something fragile about him, something *vulnerable* that Vivian--the daughter of the couple renting the bottom floor of Mark's house--immediately notices and attempts to reach out to him. The viewer already knows that Mark is dangerous, but despite the psychopathy he has demonstrated in the precision of his killings, despite the perverseness of him filming it while it happens, and despite him developing said film so he can relive the moments over and over in the comfort of his makeshift studio, you pray that not only will Vivian be able to slip from his fingers unharmed as she unwittingly treads closer and closer to finding out his secret, but that her desire to know him better and to smooth out the kinks in his demeanor (the visible ones, anyway) makes for a surprisingly endearing couple.As the title of this review should tell you, it reminds me a lot of Francis Dolarhyde's relationship with Reba in Manhunter (much more pronounced and tragic in the Red Dragon version), in which the killer finds temporary solace in an unlikely 'Morality Pet', which, despite her attempts to help their secret killers, are in the end unable to do so, and to me they serve as reminders to the viewer that compassion and empathy are indeed imperative in the handling and treatment of the mentally ill or disturbed, but they alone cannot solve the psychosis (as Vivian's intuitive mother hinted to Mark near the end of the film).I would recommend watching this for those who are curious about the psychological horror genre but are intimidated by David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick's works.