Title: Peeping Tom
Starring: Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley
Director: Michael Powell
Duration: 97 minutes
Certificate: 18
Released: 22 November 2010
This 1960s British psychological thriller film was directed by Michael Powell and written by Leo Marks it is about a voyeur named Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm), who serially murders women just for the satisfaction of watching and video recording the expressions of terror on their faces while dying.
Despite receiving a very negative response from critics, upon its release, the film nevertheless quickly gained a cult following (can you guess what sort of audience enjoyed this film?) and, perhaps due to lowering standards over the years, is now considered by modern day critics to be a masterpiece. It is often considered to be a sort of British companion piece to the US classic Psycho and has gained many 5 star reviews in the UK press upon its re-release on Blu-ray. I however do not rate it anywhere near as highly a Psycho. Admittedly there is a fairly chilling twist at the end that explains the main character’s obsession with inducing fear in others, linked to his father’s profession as a psychologist, but it’s not nearly as effective as Psycho.
There are some strong performances from the cast, steady direction and a decent amount of tension, however whilst some of the violence may look fairly tame by today’s standards I still feel that the motive behind the violence in the film is overly, and perhaps needlessly, perverted.
Because of the negative press associated with the film upon its release, Michael Powell’s career as a prominent director was effectively ended. Carl Boehm didn’t fair so badly but that is perhaps because as he is Austrian he was therefore able to go back to his native country to continue his career, staying away from UK and US productions afterwards.
Peeping Tom has clearly had a lot of work done on it to bring it up to HD standards. It’s clear and crisp and is free of any print defects. It’s had a good restoration job done on it.
