Peeping Tom Movie Review

Peeping Tom (1960)

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Written by: Leo Marks (original story, screenplay)
Directed by: Michael Powell
Starring: Karlheinz Böhm, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer
Rated: NR [R]
Watch the trailer

Plot
A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.

Verdict
While the style may be dated, it's a chilling story of a psychopath. This isn't scary because the antagonist dons a mask or is a disfigured monster, this is scary because the guy can easily blend in. He uses a camera to invade his victims' lives, and we unwittingly accompany him on this escapade. We don't just see the crimes, we're an accomplice.
Watch it.

Review
This movie ended Powell's career. Critics hated it, and it wasn't until much later that the movie gained recognition. It's certainly a movie that was ahead of its time.

While there's a bit of overacting that was typical of the time, this is unsettling from the start. Mark (Karlheinz Böhm) is strange, fascinated with seeing the world through the lens of his camera. Is he capturing memories for the future or documenting the world?

The role of the camera plays an important part in Mark's world and in how we see this movie. We see events unfold in this movie from an uncomfortably close vantage point. The camera removes the distance that a screen typically provides between us and the event depicted.

Karlheinz Böhm plays Mark

This is a character that was experimented upon by his father. Does that explain why Mark acts this way? He relives his childhood through movies, and now makes his own grotesque movies himself. His father was interested in fear and stimuli, is that Mark's interest? He wants to see the fear in his victim's eyes, and with a camera he can revisit those memories forever imprinted upon celluloid.

You could extrapolate Mark's childhood to explain why he's a psychopath. He never learned proper social skills and now he continues experiments. Or is he a psychopath because of a fundamental shortcoming? I don't think many women would indulge Mark for so long, but society was also less paranoid then. I wondered if this would attempt to provide an explanation as to why Mark is this way. It's left up to the viewer. He seems to do this not for the crime itself, but to see how people react as he seeks an emotional response. The camera allows him to relive the moment.

This was a thriller ahead of its time, but it didn't have a large influence as it was such a small movie. This is scary on a base level because this is a seemingly normal guy, albeit odd, outside of his crimes. Someone like this could be your coworker or neighbor. In the contemporary paranoid climate, a movie like this would be even more unsettling.