It's kind of crazy to think that one movie can effectively kill someone's career, but that is pretty much what Peeping Tom did to Michael Powell (The Red Shoes). It was universally reviled upon its release and only gained its classic status years later, too late to fix Powell's broken reputation. The director noted in his biography, "I make a film that nobody wants to see and then, thirty years later, everybody has either seen it or wants to see it." Incidentally the film that Peeping Tom is most often compared to, Psycho, which came out only months later, would gain instant success and critical acclaim, further bolstering Alfred Hitchcock's status, while Powell and his film would languish in the shadows for years. It's been a while since I've seen Psycho, but Peeping Tom compares favorably to it and is a victim of the unfortunate but common theme of being misunderstood in its time. (Though to be clear, Psycho is a better movie.)
There are similarities in both Peeping Tom and Psycho, like having a serial killer as the protagonist and also in how they are portrayed. Both killers are soft spoken and seemingly harmless. Both have traumatic childhoods by the hands of a parent, Norman Bates with his overbearing mother and Mark Lewis with his father who performed psychological experiments on him as a child.
However, thematically, I think Peeping Tom is much closer to another Hitchcock classic, Rear Window, namely in the ideas of voyeurism and how it relates to the movie watching process. In both films, we get to watch people who like to watch other people. Serial killer Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) likes to film his victim's reactions of fear when killing them. We become not just the audience to the movie Peeping Tom, but to his personal snuff films as well. It is like watching a world within a world; Powell allows us to peer into this fictional world, but it is Mark that is the true director of this movie and brings the viewer much closer, perhaps uncomfortably so, to the action. When people ask him what he's doing with his camera, he responds by saying that he is shooting a documentary.
In a way, we are watching the movie as Mark would want us to. We effectively become him or at the very least we watch uncomfortably beside him in his dark room as he relives his kills that he's filmed. In a way, Peeping Tom is more about making and watching movies than it is about killing people. Martin Scorsese has said that this film, along with Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, contains all that can be said about directing:
"I have always felt that Peeping Tom and 8 1/2 say everything that can be said about film-making, about the process of dealing with film, the objectivity and subjectivity of it and the confusion between the two. 8 1/2 captures the glamour and enjoyment of film-making, while Peeping Tom shows the aggression of it, how the camera violates... From studying them you can discover everything about people who make films, or at least people who express themselves through films." (Thanks Wikipedia!)
Okay, all boring film theory stuff aside, this film is also a good character study of a serial killer. Underneath that mild mannered and shy exterior, he is a monster, but it is also important you understand why he is that way. Perhaps you will feel sorry for him after learning that his father performed all sorts of cruel experiments on him or maybe you'll still find him equally repulsive. Either way, like in Fritz Lang's M, you are at least invited to the psychology of the killer.
I've also seen enough episodes of CSI and Criminal Minds to know that there is a link between sexuality and violence and Peeping Tom makes a blatant connection between the two. Perhaps that is one of the things that turned critics off to this film. They just weren't ready for something this suggestive. There is a definite sexual link between Mark and his camera, as a means for his voyeurism and as an actual weapon. He slowly lifts one of the legs of the tripod up and towards his victim like a penis and penetrates them with its sharpened end.
Anyways, there is also a good amount of suspense and genuine horror in the film as well. It doesn't go for the cheap thrills of modern day slasher films, but the build up of scenes and situations makes the shrieks on screen all the more believable.
I think Psycho, which has arguably even more controversial subject matter, benefited greatly by being released after Peeping Tom which absorbed much of the general shock (and scorn) of the public for these kind of movies. Viewed in a modern light, it is kind of hard to see what the big fuss was about. Then again half of all PG-13 movies nowadays would have been rated R back then and two thirds of rated R movies would have been rated X. The other third would have been ordered to be destroyed and the directors hanged. Michael Powell was just a victim of the times.
Grade: B+
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