Anna isn’t typically a fan of most of the movies I pick out to watch. Since I tend to gravitate towards genre and exploitation films, which are prone to bouts of graphic violence and the occasional derogatory nudity, and she finds both stupider then stupid. It has gotten to the point that she simply assumes that any film that gravitates to the top of our queue is over populated with T&A and gore. So when Peeping Tom crept towards the coveted top spot she was noticeably leery. With such a salacious title, how could it not be a film that focused on gratuitous sex and nudity? But Peeping Tom had something far more disturbing in store for me.
Peeping Tom was something unlike anything audiences had ever seen when it was released. Focusing on a killer that used his daytime job as a photographer as a way to get closer to models, actresses and even the occasional streetwalker in order to kill them. Using a concealed razor sharp spike within the tripod of his camera, he slowly stalks his prey as they cower in fear, and just before he kills them he shows them something which serves to further fuel his murderous desires. But what was he showing them that causes them to be powerless with fear?
But while Peeping Tom showcased its killer, it also humanized him to a degree never before seen. This wasn’t a being of pure evil, but a sympathetic monster who was born from years of torturous abuse from his father. A father obsessed with discovering the nature of fear in children, so obsessed that every night he would terrify his son in an attempt to study how he reacts in an effort to further his own twisted research. And as if this wasn’t perverse enough, his father would film every horrific moment in order for both of them to watch it later. Is it any wonder the boy would grow up to be obsessed with filming others who are frightened?
But a sympathetic sociopath wasn’t something audiences were interested in liking when director Michael Powell (Black Narcissus)unleashed it upon the masses in 1960. It wasn’t that it was too complex a notion for them, it just simply was a concept that wasn’t deemed credible or realistic, and with its voyeuristic story, was deemed a sadistic piece of trash by film critics. When faced with a killer who was a product of nurture rather than nature, audiences and critics alike rejected it with abject furry. Thus Powell’s lauded career came to a crashing halt on the heels of such a public disaster. It was soon after that Peeping Tom became nothing more then an after thought in the public’s consciousness. But oddly enough, just a few months later another sympathetic serial killer by the name of Norman Bates would be greeted with a very different reaction, and would sow the seeds that people would realize that Peeping Tom was far too impressive of a movie to have been give such an infamous and undeserved response.
Mark (Carl Boehm) is a quiet, shy man. He supplements his income as a camera operator by shooting the occasional risqué photographs of half naked women. But while this rather odd hobby seems particularly strange, it is nothing compared to his habit of murdering women and then filming the police investigations. But when a neighbor (Anna Massey) begins to develop a crush on him Mark thinks he might have finally found a way to break his bad habits. Only this girl’s blind aunt (Maxine Audley) is uneasy about her niece’s newest crush. She can tell there is something not quite right with him, if only she could put her finger on it.
Peeping Tom opens with a first person perspective shot that is clearly being viewed through a camera as it records the events unfolding before its lense. This immediately ties the audience to the camera operator, and as they watch him he hires a prostitute, follows her to her room, and promptly kills her. By using this stylistic device Powell has twisted the audiences voyeuristic tendencies and made them culpable in the crime that occurred. Such an act of aggression towards your audience was unheard of then, and it is easy to see why critics reacted so negatively to such a film, much like how critics have shown a similar dislike to Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, which also manages to implicate the audience along with its on screen killers. I wouldn’t be surprised if Haneke is one of the many fans of Peeping Tom.
But after that early volley Peeping Tom is far more restrained then you would imagine for a film that was so thoroughly vilified. The film shows none of the murders on screen, and even the bodies of the victims are routinely shielded from sight. You’ll be hard pressed to find a spot of blood in the film, and for a film about a man who shoots pornographic photographs, the sexuality displayed is positively demure as well. But what the audience does get to witness is far more disturbing.
From the years of abuse at the hands of his father, as well as observing his father’s own twisted obsession with watching people being intimate with each other, Mark has combined his father’s indiscretions into his own unique sickly sort of perversion. Filming his own personal “documentary” he continues to look for the perfect subject who will display the proper amount of fear while being killed while he also follows the police and their efforts to capture him, drawing as much satisfaction at their investigation as he is at his heinous crimes.
But throughout his ordeal Mark continually turns to Helen (Massey) for guidance out of the dark recess of his soul. Helen is the only person willing to not only interact with Mark, but truly show an interest in learning who he is, and Mark, for his part, finally sees a way in which he might escape his torturous past and present. Mark slowly opens up his childhood trauma to Helen and it is her kindness at his situation that surprisingly turns Mark into an em pathetic figure. It is through Helen that the audience can see the injured child behind the grownup murderer, and it is in that complex character development that Peeping Tom truly shines.
And when it gets down to it, it is Boehm that carries the film. His Mark is a tour de force of suppressed desires and emotions, struggling to interact in even the simplest terms with those around him. With every phrase he utters it becomes increasingly obvious that Mark has never developed even the slightest social skills because of his father’s experiments. But Mark becomes an ever increasingly fascinating individual whenever he interacts with Helen, as nearly every sentence is loaded or contains a double meaning that she couldn’t possibly understand. But Mark becomes an ever increasingly fascinating individual whenever he interacts with Helen, as nearly every sentence is loaded or contains a double meaning that she couldn’t possibly understand. Mark is trying his very best to communicate with her, but he simply doesn’t posses the ability to do it on any sort of an adult level, of which Helen simply is never able to discern. As such the audience is once again dragged further into the film, knowing Mark’s every meaning, while Helen is helpless to understand just how truly twisted this seemingly innocuous man is.
But as I write this I struggle with why I wasn’t more enamored with the film. It certainly had more then its fair share of impressive aspects, from the acting, stylistic choices, to even the almost overwhelming creepy feeling layered throughout the film, yet for whatever reason I was never quite drawn into Peeping Tom. Perhaps it is because I’ve already seen films like Funny Games which are relentless in their attacks on the audience while Peeping Tom is far more restrained. Perhaps it is because the sympathetic, abused killer is now so common place it is almost quaint. But whatever the reason it is clear that Peeping Tom was not only on the cutting edge for its time, that it has laid the foundation for almost every criminal thriller to come. It may not quite be a great film, but it is unquestionably an important one.
