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Peeping Tom (1960): Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer and Anna Massey. Directed by Michael Powell, Screenplay by Leo Marks.

“Peeping Tom”, some say, is Powell’s “Freaks” in that it’s a very strange film from a director whose primary work up to this point more or less treaded. The straight and narrow.

Powell dips deeply into his main character, a psyhopathic killer who uses a camera and tripod as his main weapons, crafting 90% of the narrative from his point of view, a strange choice for a thriller at that time. You are there as he attacks victim after victim, filming their bloody deaths, then watching the footage afterward.

When the film was first released, it was hugely misunderstood by critics and audiences alike and pretty much put an end to Powell’s career. Ahead of its time, the film gained a new life as a cult film among young filmmakers in 1960’s, among them Martin Scorsese, who’s responsible for having the film re-released in the late 70’s to an even wider audience of new fans.

The film is widely regarded, not to far below it’s surface, as an examination of filmmaking and how the filmmaker and audience are all voyeurs themselves, violating the lives of those on the screen. “We sit in the dark, watching other people’s lives. It is the bargain the cinema strikes with us, although most films are too well-behaved to mention it.” said Roger Ebert of the film.

Despite the subject matter, “Peeping Tom” dies have an English restraint, compared to other horror films; one can only imagine what Mario Bava, Sergio Martino, or Dario Argento might have done with the same material.

Get it at Amazon.com:
Peeping Tom - Criterion Collection

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