This fascinating and disturbing thriller all but destroyed the career of director Michael Powell. Badly received and heavily criticised on its release in 1960, reassessment has shown it to be one of the most important films of its time.
Karlheinz Böhm plays Mark Lewis, a reclusive young cinematographer and part-time glamour photographer. As a child, Lewis was used as a guinea pig for his father's psychological experiments in fear and the nervous system. Terrible memories of these experiments have turned Lewis into a psychopathic killer, who films the look of terror in the eyes of his dying victims.
Into Lewis's life comes Helen Stephens (Anna Massey), a neighbour, who has no idea of the true content of the reels of film in his room, nor of his designs on one of his colleagues, Vivian (Moira Shearer)...
Highly recommended.
Did you know? Despite an enormous critical backlash, the film earned a cult following, especially among film students. In 1978, director Martin Scorsese put up funds to have the film restored and re-released, so that Peeping Tom could gain a wider following.
(4 Star)
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