SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Inadvands Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

lasttimeisaw Historically, PEEPING TOM is a presciently sympathetic take on sexual perversity that torpedoed Michael Powell's career, thanks to islanders' true-blue insularity, but has earned its overdue cachet through years when it reaches a wider audience around the globe, partially because its then-controversial topic now can be liberally appreciated as an incisive meta-reflection of cinema itself. Watching films is a de facto act of voyeurism, albeit a passive one, a prerequisite a spectator might subliminally intend to overlook when its more overtly entertaining value is in full swing, and in PEEPING TOM, Powell, drawing on Leo Marks deviant if dumbed-down script, formulates a lurid mise-en-scène of a fear-collector-turned-murderer young cinematographer Mark Lewis (Böhm, of SISSI trilogy fame), who is (sexually) obsessed with mortal fear engendered by his female victims when their last breaths begin to dawn on them, and he films their last moments and savors them in his solitary dark room. Also, he has a unique way to magnify their terror, which Powell tactfully reveals in the climax, as an answer to the film's innovative killer's viewfinder's POV in its prologue. Albeit its slasher (avant la lettre) template (suspense and horror is downplayed in favor of a manner of poised characterization), PEEPING TOM looks directly into the psychological cause of Mark's perversity, a child guinea-pig of his senseless scientist father, grows up in a disturbed, recorded and wired environment that substantially alters his perception and psyche. Critically, by dint of Böhm's taciturn, sensitive and inner-struggling performance, Powell pegs Mark as both a victimizer and a victim, an approach doesn't fall in line with moral rigidity but sequentially humanizes our monster, particularly, by pairing him with a guileless if somewhat cheeky girl-next-door Helen Stephens (a feisty Massey, holds our attention in her brilliant reaction shots when the crunch demands), to whom he might have a slender chance of a normal relationship if he can suppress his morbid proclivity (at one point, she even successfully persuades him to have a date with her without his phantom limb, the 16mm movie camera), yet that faint, precious chink of warmth is inevitably diminished after his another wanton surge, he has no alternative but to exact his final act to seal his preordained seal, and simultaneously, sate his persisting fixation.Apart from Massey's counterpoising presence of innocuousness, other two supporting performances are also noteworthy, famed ballerina Moira Shearer (in her third and last collaboration with Powell), as a clueless stand-in Vivian, obliviously twirls around Mark as he carefully prepare for her impending quietus, makes a striking example of a beauty's tragic end, which is sheer in contrast to Maxine Audley's steely lucidity as Helen's blind mother, who is luckily spared for her visual unresponsiveness, a thinly veiled metaphor of an aging/unassuming woman's vanishing sex appeal (she is only three years older than Shearer).Deeply steeped in its counter-genre variegated shades and musician Brian Easdale's compelling virtuosity and cadenza, to all intents and purposes, PEEPING TOM thrives as a thought-provoking tall tale whose message might be well ahead of its time, but in terms of cinematic grandeur, it is a trailblazer that often imitated but rarely eclipsed.

dougdoepke This slasher flick may have historical significance, but I found it disappointing. As the slasher, Bohm's portrayal is simply too placid to engage interest. He's all hectic activity overseen up by an expressionless demeanor. Maybe that makes for an interesting case study for those who speculate. After all, Mark's about the last word in emotional repression. Plus, that penetrating cane that rises over his victims amounts to a telling bit of symbolism. Nonetheless, the overall result adds up to turgid cinema that failed to involve me in his predicament. To me, the best scenes are the movie sets-- the frazzled nerves, the tyrannical director. Such organized chaos appears a long way from Hollywood glamorville. Too bad Helen's blind mom (Audley) wasn't made the culprit. She projects the real depth that's a needed contrast to the wooden Bohm.. Also, there's plain-faced Anna Massey as Helen. Her looks and manner convey a poignancy that injects some suspense when she connects with the serial killer. (Massey also resembles Pat Hitchcock, Alfred's daughter, who was also doing cameo roles at the time.) Anyway, it's possible I saw a poorly edited version of what's reputedly a much-edited movie (IMDB). Nonetheless, judging from Bohm's uninvolving performance, the results appear unfortunately overrated, despite the hype.

christopher-underwood This looks so good and appears far more seriously intended than the same years Psycho, yet I hesitate to enthuse. I feel it would have been a better idea to use a likable English actor in the central role and imbue him with a more subtle creepiness. It seems too easy to just make the baddie a German so that we may assume the worst. True, we are supplied with background evidence of abuse of the abuser, thanks to the survival of his father's films of him as a child and there is word from a psychiatrist towards the end regarding the needs of a pathological voyeur. But the real horror of the need to create fear in another to excite is not properly explored which is a shame especially as only a few years later the horrors of the Moors Murders would be upon us. Nevertheless the use of colour is extraordinary, the recreation of the seedy newsagents (complete with copies of the UK glamour digests, Spick and Span) the alley way prostitutes and the glamour photography wondrous. Anna Massey always strikes me as a most awkward actress but she does very well here almost covering up for the more tentative performance from Karlheinz Bohm as the man with the killer camera.

jimpayne1967 I first came across this film 30 years ago after reading the entry for it in Danny Peary's book on Cult Films and, as I was a great fan of a couple of the Powell and Pressburger I was curious to see it- Peary was very enthusiastic and the cult has grown since then and it is now very highly rated.I think the ending is terrific- disturbing, creepy and poignant rather than scary and definitely worth waiting for.But the rest of the film is a bit sluggish and some of the acting is a bit ropey with Carl Boehm being neither sinister nor sympathetic enough though Maxine Audley and Anna Massey are superb and Shirley Ann Field looks nice as always. Real life glamour model Pamela Green looks splendid too and if you look hard enough she reveals more than had been revealed in a mainstream British film before. There are interesting subtexts about sexuality, voyeursim, cinema itself and (possibly) post war British attitudes to Germans in this film and 55 years on the surface subject is still quite shocking but this is not, I think, a great film. It has an eerie score, some good bits but it is nothing more than 'worth catching' as opposed to the masterpiece it is now considered to be.