An aspiring director named Mark Lewis films everything, using his cameras as a means to satisfy his voyeuristic obsession. That obsession leads to serial killings and an uneasy relationship between viewer and voyeur.
This feels very much like the kind of suspense and warped perspective provided by so many Hitchcock films. That's not to say that director Powell is a Hitchcock clone, it's just a great way to explain what the film is like. It's not possible to see how any fan of "Rear Window", "Psycho", or "Vertigo" will not appreciate "Peeping Tom".
Carl Boehm plays Lewis and is amazing in the role. He generates sympathy for his illness, which was undoubtedly brought about by his biologist father, who cruelly experimented on him as child. Further, he filmed and recorded young Mark as he tortured him. This all sounds grizzly but the old grainy home movies that show these horrors are very tame when compared to today's violent movie fare. Yet Powell generates tension and thrills through the shadows and darkness of city streets and Lewis's darkroom.
There are some great scenes but most enjoyable involved interrogation of Lewis by sweet but curious neighbor Helen, a police detective investigating one of Lewis's murders but primarily when he's confronted by Helen's blind mother, who is the only person suspicious of Mark based solely on his mannerisms, detected without her sight.
"Peeping Tom" is a classic demonstration of suspense and the ability to present terror and psychological horror without buckets of bloodshed.
Review by whitsbrainVIP 6BlockedParent2022-01-15T17:12:43Z
An aspiring director named Mark Lewis films everything, using his cameras as a means to satisfy his voyeuristic obsession. That obsession leads to serial killings and an uneasy relationship between viewer and voyeur.
This feels very much like the kind of suspense and warped perspective provided by so many Hitchcock films. That's not to say that director Powell is a Hitchcock clone, it's just a great way to explain what the film is like. It's not possible to see how any fan of "Rear Window", "Psycho", or "Vertigo" will not appreciate "Peeping Tom".
Carl Boehm plays Lewis and is amazing in the role. He generates sympathy for his illness, which was undoubtedly brought about by his biologist father, who cruelly experimented on him as child. Further, he filmed and recorded young Mark as he tortured him. This all sounds grizzly but the old grainy home movies that show these horrors are very tame when compared to today's violent movie fare. Yet Powell generates tension and thrills through the shadows and darkness of city streets and Lewis's darkroom.
There are some great scenes but most enjoyable involved interrogation of Lewis by sweet but curious neighbor Helen, a police detective investigating one of Lewis's murders but primarily when he's confronted by Helen's blind mother, who is the only person suspicious of Mark based solely on his mannerisms, detected without her sight.
"Peeping Tom" is a classic demonstration of suspense and the ability to present terror and psychological horror without buckets of bloodshed.