Review of Peeping Tom (1960) by Karen F — 31 May 2011

Martin Scorsese once said that there were two movies to watch that fully captured what it's like to be a director: 8 1/2 and Peeping Tom. Carl Bohm plays Mark Lewis, a psycho killer who films women before, during, and after he kills them.

He always returns to the scene of the crime to see everyones reactions as they take the body away. What surprised me was how deep Powell goes into Mark's character. Typically when something is said to be ahead of its time then it turns out to be great for when it was made, but they have done much better with it in recent years.

Powell dedicates so much time in understanding Mark that I feel like it's better than most films about psycho killers. You see, Mark is a peeping tom because of his crazy upbringing. When he brings Helen into his room to watch the films his father made we see that his father liked to scare him and film it.

His father also filmed Mark seeing his mother dead on her bed and also at the funeral. Towards the end of the film when he speaks to a psychiatrist we see that Mark is trying to fix his problem. He understands it's not right, but it has become and addiction.

With Helen in his life, he wants to be a better person. Throughout this story we also see what it's like to be behind the camera. Every director is kind of like a voyeur capturing a person's most brutal and honest moments (at least if he or she is a great director).

Bohm is severely creepy and at the same time human. We don't want him to murder because we care about him, but at the same time we are scared of him. Powell makes an excellent film that was ahead of its time, and still ahead of most films today.