Review of Peeping Tom (1960) by Kenneth L — 27 Aug 2011

This movie deserves to get talked about way more often than it does. This is an underrated, deeply weird psychological thriller that apparently rubbed a lot of people the wrong way when it came out in 1960. This is understandable - not only does it treat such dark subject matter as voyeurism, serial killers, child abuse, and bizarre fetishes, but it makes you identify with the titular psychotic peeping tom and (often literally) see things from his point of view. There's nothing else quite like it from its time, at least that I know of.

The story follows a serial killer (Karl Heinz Boehm) who likes to film women with his handheld camera as he murders them, and then watch the films later. The exact method by which he kills them is a mystery at the beginning of the film, and the film stubbornly refuses to give this particular element away until the very end. A couple of different plot strands have him committing various murders and trying to avoid the police, and attempting to deal with the romantic interest of his downstairs neighbor (Anna Massey) and concealing his true nature from her.

Karl Heinz Boehm's performance as Mark Lewis, the serial killer, is reminiscent of Peter Lorre at his very creepiest. It's an understated but effective performance, and the hint of a Lorre-esque German accent coming from his supposedly English character just makes him all the weirder. Although you know he's the killer throughout the entire movie, you nevertheless end up liking him and hoping he doesn't come to too bad an end. Anna Massey's performance as the naive girl downstairs is charming and sympathetic. Maxine Audley gets a couple of truly remarkable scenes as the girl's blind but perceptive and protective mother.

Michael Powell's direction and Leo Marks's screenplay are both extremely creative. This was one of those relatively rare instances where I watched a movie having genuinely no idea what to expect next. Powell frequently shows us the perspective of the killer's camera, which pulls us into the story in strange ways. The killer's film development room is made into an effectively scary lair. You could write about the meta-cinematic aspects of the movie all day. The color cinematography, at least on the Criterion Collection restoration, holds up reasonably well. This is one dark, disturbing, strange, great film.