Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing Psychological Horror
Review: This wonderfully creepy 1960 horror film predates Psycho by about 3 months and predates the "slasher" film by about 16 years and, in braving new ground which deviated from the Gothic Horror film movement spawned by Hammer Films in 1957, helped move horror from the Gothic castles to the house next door.Michael Powell's film presents us with a young man who is so fascinated by the subject of fear, that he stalks young women and kills them while filming their deaths with his movie camera. In to the young man's world, comes a young woman who only wants to understand him and love him, but will she find out his horrible secret before its too late?While lambasted by critics who condemend the film for being "The sickets and filthiest film I can remember seeing . . .", Peeping Tom in one of the most interesting horror films of the early 60s. It was the critical attacks against the film and Powell himself which prompted Hitchcock not to have a critics screening for his new film about a killer, "Psycho", which premiered a few months later.This Criterion release has all the thrills of the laser disk release (trailers, audio commentary, still gallery) plus a wonderful BBC documentary on the making of Peeping Tom called "A Very British Psycho".A fine presention of a classicly disturbing film. WELL DONE !
Rating: 
Summary: Hold on to your knickers, this is a great film
Review: We learn from the documentary on the DVD, that when Michael Powell's Peeping Tom was released it was called the "sickest and filthiest film" and was pulled from the theatres in a week. From there it fell into obscurity.In viewing the film you understand the British critics of the time. The film cut the surface of British respectability and showed the decay underneath. The principal theme is disturbing even today. While reviewers like to trumpet this film as a predecessor to Psycho and the first 'slasher' film they are conveniently ignoring its text. If it was just a 'slasher' film it wouldn't have suffered the ignominy it did. Its themes go well beyond this simplistic rationalization and are a closer relation to the contemporary films 8mm and Thesis. Peeping Tom broke many taboo's of the time and probably tore the knickers off many a Londoner before it was pulled. It is a credit to the younger directors of the 1980's that this filmed was found, restored and is now appreciated for the masterpiece it is. Criterion has done a superb job with the original film and the extras add immensely to the appreciation of it. If you collect films that changed or created new directions in the industry, then this is one to own.
Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate In Movie Voyeurism.
Review: In a day and age where the importance of film in our society grows in leaps and bounds everyday, Michael Powell's devastating and completely unforgettable "Peeping Tom" levels the most convincing argument that we don't just watch films... we live them. The killer in "Peeping Tom" is a kind, shy, almost child-like man who, as the son of a scientist father forever obsessed with the fear of children, was tormented as a child. Many times his father would shine lights in the sleeping boy's eyes or drop lizards onto his bed in order to frighten the child, all the while recording his reactions on film. When the boy grows up, he carries on his father's work... maybe a little too well. He decides that the greatest fear experienced comes at the point of death. He conceals a knife in the tripod of his ever-present camera and films his victims as they slowly realize their fate. He also (in a move Hitchcock would envy) forces them to watch their own frightened faces with a small mirror attached to the front of the camera. He desires fear and he goes to extreme lengths to achieve it in his victims. The movie not only asks us to sympathize with the killer (played with a certain charm and yet an air of repellance by Carl Boehm) but also participate in his crimes. We see what he sees while filming them, while watching his footage at home, we are (very eerily) immersed into his film. We are right beside him, watching his victims and relishing in their terror. The camera the killer carries is more of an extension of himself then merely a way of recording what he sees. When his lovely neighbor kisses him, his face remains immobile, as if he doesn't quite know what's going on. But when she walks into the next room, he places his lips onto the lense of the camera and a look of pure passion crosses his face. When she is asking for his opinion on where she should place the pin he has given to her for a birthday present, his hands follow hers as if recording their movement. It is a film about film and about the experience of a moviegoer. Like Hitchcock's "Rear Window" it is a truly exhilarating and unnerving experience about sitting in a theater and not only watching what is going on, but living it. And loving it. No matter what is going on in front of your eyes. A classic.
Rating:
Summary: Not Slick, but Sick
Review: Four stars seem a little generous. The film is certainly memorable, and certainly different. There are a lot of odd things going on here. The oddest is why the central character, Mark Lewis, is so obviously a blond, blue-eyed German. Very strange, this. Is there some weird subterranean comment about the sickness of Hitler's Germany, and how we ought to feel sorry for the perpetrators of his crimes, because of their blighted childhoods? Much of the rest of the symbolism is very heavy-handed, however, as other reviewers have pointed out. It is consistently perverse. The director of the film within the film: "The Walls are Closing In", is played by an actor who was in point of fact virtually blind. He had a bit part in several James Bond films. Is there some message here? Peeping Tom's father, the heartless psychologist, was played by Powell himself. What is this telling us? Is part of the message meant to be that the camera kills? It doesn't hang together somehow. What's the meaning of the model with half a hideous face? Why is the would-be girl-friend's alcoholic mother blind? Why is the only presence with real star quality, Moira Shearer, playing a stand-in? Much of the premise of the film seems promising, but it is clumsily written, and directed with a leaden hand. In fact, what many of the Powell-Pressburger films seem to lack is any real sense of pace or excitement. It's all a bit tired, and slow. There is nausea, but no shock or thrill. Loco, perhaps, but Psycho, it isn't.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating but flawed film by a marvelous director
Review: PEEPING TOM famously was condemned upon its release in 1960, and has seen ascended to the position of cult favorite. It is the last of Powell's major films that I have seen, and I must say that in comparison with his other films, this does not come off very well. My opinion is that it is a film that was underrated when it came out, but quite overrated by many film viewers today.
I think there are three reasons for the film's undeserved high evaluation today. First, many film viewers are aware that people like Martin Scorsese have heaped lavish praise on it, which I believe cows many into evaluating it more highly than they might otherwise be inclined. If you are expecting a minor masterpiece, you will be inclined to see it. Second, some viewers knowing how lowly the film was esteemed when it came out are pleased to see that it is not an awful film, as indeed it is not. Third, many people compare it to Hitchcock's FRENZY, which I believe lends it an aura that it might not otherwise have obtained completely on its own.
I believe this is a decent film, even if Powell's weakest major film. The comparison with FRENZY is both unfair and unenlightening. Virtually none of the most astounding elements of FRENZY appear in PEEPING TOM. On the other hand, the most conspicuous elements of PEEPING TOM appear in other Hitchcock films, but not FRENZY. Many of Hitchcock's films deal with voyeurism, but FRENZY is not one of them. Also, PEEPING TOM lacks all of the astonishingly moments of suspense that graces FRENZY, as well as the many moments of extraordinary humor.
Carl Boehm, who is the son of the great German conductor Karl Boehm, does a good job in this film, but I wonder a bit about his having been cast. He is supposed to play a boy raised in England by English parents, but throughout the film he displays a marked German accent. More troubling is the fact that his psychological history is handled in a fashion even murkier than usual in films of past decades, though in fairness to Powell it is no worse than psychological explanations in Hitchcock films, which despite his undoubted genius as a filmmaker were always the greatest weak moments in his films.
Worse of all, I didn't find any part of this film to be especially compelling. Interesting, yes, but compelling, no. At no point did it grip me, and many scenes seemed either contrived or trite. Powell also lacks the ability that Hitchcock possessed in such abundance to portray convincingly pathological obsession. Most such elements in this film were mentioned rather than displayed.
One interesting casting quiddity was the presence of Miles Malleson and Anna Massey in the same film. One of the lesser romances in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is that between Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble. Interestingly, Malleson (who played the part of a purchaser of dirty photos early in the film) played Chasuble and Massey (who played Boehm's downstairs neighbor) played Prism in the 1952 and 2002 filmed versions of the play respectively.
I do urge those interested in the career of Michael Powell to see this film, but I would also suggest that this is hardly the masterpiece that many assert it to be. It is a moderately interesting film with some strong performances told with less than Powell's usual flair. Hopefully in the future we will see a more balanced assessment of this film than dominates today.
Rating:
Summary: There's a Little Tom in All of Us...
Review: _Peeping Tom_ is a shockingly original film that deals with themes of voyeurism, fear, and childhood trauma in a unique and interesting way. The opening shot reveals the hand-camera work of the main character, Mark Lewis (played by Carl Boehm), who videotapes himself murdering an innocent woman, causing her terrible fright-the source of which we do not quite know. He subsequently watches his video in a perverse scene of indulgence and therapy. I particularly enjoyed the film-inside-a-film theme that runs throughout the movie's entire length. As Mark satiates his desire for control and to complete a documentary on fear by watching his own snuff films, the audience peers over his shoulder and watches him work.
Another aspect of this film that sets it apart from many thriller films is the amount of psychological complexity and character that we are treated to. Mark Lewis's character is as much a victim as those he kills, in light of the fact that he himself was the subject of his own father's voyeuristic attraction to fear and psychological experiments. Rather than being a killer motivated by power or sexual lust, Lewis's particular attraction is to capture the fear of his victims on camera in the same manner that his father captured his screams and reactions to torture. Boehm plays the character splendidly and truly breathes life into the character of an emotionally unstable man with a vivid sense of his own troubles. Far from a simple horror film centered around the actions of a serial killer, Boehm's portrayal fleshes out the mind and background of a demented serial killer, creating sympathy and a sense of understanding from those privileged to his background (namely we, the audience).
On top of everything, I enjoyed the way that piano music was woven into the film and I really liked the entire soundtrack. Finally, the ending of the film is absolutely tremendous, weird, and indescribable. If the film seems a bit like trudging uphill it certainly blasts off in the final five minutes. Critics apparently reviled the film for its voyeuristic camera shots and the fact that it portrayed Lewis as a sympathetic character-the same two reasons I found the film compelling. Well, it isn't the 1960s anymore and you should definitely give this film a look.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Movie Which Some Find Unpleasant
Review: This is a great, unpleasant, disturbing film made by Michael Powell three years after he and his partner in the Archers, Emeric Pressburger, went their own ways. British critics loathed it, said so loudly, and the movie died within weeks of its release. Some say it destroyed Powell's career.
Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) is a young man who works as a camera puller at a movie studio, who also at night photogaphs girlie pictures for magazines. His father, a psychologist, studied the effects of fear by putting his son in terrible situations and then photographing the child's reactions. Lewis lives in the second floor of a house and often watches those movies while he sits alone in the dark.
Lewis also does something else. In the tripod of his camera there is a concealed knife. As he photographs a girl the knife pushes into her, while the camera films her face as she realizes she is going to die and then while she is dying. He plays back these movies, too. As you watch Peeping Tom you become a voyeur participant in what he is doing. He meets the young woman who lives below him and it is apparent that she is at first curious about him, but then attracted to him. He finds within himself an attraction that might be love, might be salvation, but which is conflicted. The movie plays out with tension, remorse and even sympathy. The ending is somewhat unexpected, but with hindsight also inevitable.
And maybe that is what made this movie so controversial. Lewis is a sympathetic figure. You know what his father put him through because you've watched those old movies. Boehm playes Lewis as a shy, nice, rather sad young man. Anna Massey, who plays Helen Stephens, the girl on the first floor, is a first-rate actress and in this role she is excellent. She eventually realizes something is wrong with Lewis, but still wants to give him love and help.
This movie was released just weeks after Psycho. Hitchcock's career was enhanced, Powell's was hurt. I think the difference was that while Norman Bates was weird to begin with and the frights were real, you could laugh at yourself afterward. Not so with Peeping Tom. The voyeur aspect of the deaths still make a viewer uncomfortable, and you can easily feel sad about the damaged Mark Lewis.
For fans of Michael Powell, he plays Mark Lewis' father in the old movie clips that show the fear experiments. Powell's young son played the young Mark Lewis.
As usual with Criterion, the film looks great and the extras are worth watching. The extra about Peeping Tom's writer, Leo Marks, is fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: A true breakthrough!
Review: Michael Powell made more than a movie, he opened the troubled mind and troubled soul of a disturbed man who suffered in his childhood extreme abuses from his father played this role by the director himself.
The use of the camera and the script opened the gate to a new world of young directors who still are influenced by this film forty four years after.
This film is a cult movie and undoubtedly a film ahead its own time .
Powell reminds us that Peeping Tom are us too, the viewers every time we seat in front of the screen.
Psycho would come after, but this was the pioneer expression of a new genre of horror.
And that's why about its relevant place in the brittish cinema.
Do you need another advise for buying this landmark film?
Carl Boehm made an intimate and credible portrait in this difficult and even demanding role .
Rating:
Summary: Michael Powell crosses over the line with "Peeping Tom"
Review: "Peeping Tom" is a film whose place in cinematic history cannot help but outweigh the critical value of the film itself. When it was released in Great Britain in 1960 it was universally condemned by the critics and pulled from released the first week, effectively ending the career of director Michael Powell ("I Know Where I'm Going," "Black Narcissus," "The Red Shoes"). "Peeping Tom" is about a young man who not only murders women, but who films them as he kills them. What upset the critics was that Powell used the perspective of the camera to turn the viewing audience into voyeurs as well, and that he made the murderer into a sympathetic figure. Reducing "Peeping Tom" to the level of a slasher film misses the point, because this is much more of a psychological portrait of a troubled young man. Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) works as an assistant cameraman at a film studio and has trouble appreciating the difference between the real world and what he sees through the lens of a camera. Mark has another job, taking "views" of half naked women for the owner of the local news agent shope (Bartlett Mullins) to sell discretely to his customers. But Mark's voyeurism is ultimately not about sex, but rather about fear: provoking it and recording it. As Mark slowly opens up to Helen (Anna Massey), the girl who lives downstairs in his building who shows an interest in his work, we learn that his father was a psychologist who filmed his son in a series of disquieting experiments into the nature of fear. The boy is following in daddy's footsteps. Powell and screenwriter Leo Marks had wanted to do a film about the work of Sigmund Freud, but John Huston was working on "Freud" in Hollywood, so Marks suggest a story about a voyeuristic murderer as an alternative psychological thriller. Ultimately, the psychological dimensions of "Peeping Tom" outweigh the thriller elements and are what make this a noteworthy film. "Peeping Tom" came out before "Psycho," and the comparisons are inevitable, although they seem as much the work of different times as of different directors. Part of it is that Powell is working in technicolor, with rich colors which work against the horror elements in the film. But we also have to take into account that Powell is not dealing with suspense as a key part of the equation and that there is nothing in "Peeping Tom" anywhere near the level of the shower scene in "Psycho." The key scene is the opening sequences, where we see Mark approach a prostitute on the street, his camera becomes the point of view for the audience, and we see the terror on this face of his first victim before she dies. Then, during the opening credits, we see Mark watching the film he has just shot. The film's opening sets up the rules for the game in this film and no doubt outraged the London film credits before the director's name appeared (shown over Mark's projector no less). Add to this the fact that Powell and his son played Mark's father and Mark as a child, and that probably outraged them more than the half naked women lounging around in display positions. Powell's leading man was the son of a noted Austrian conductor and Boehm's slight German accent probably afforded the critics the small confort that this twisted individual was not a proper English lad. Since this is a Criterion Collection DVD the presentation of the film is done right, with a commentary track by film theorist Laura Mulvey who combines criticism of the film with the history of the film, cast, and crew. Serious film students will enjoy her insights and her comprehensive critique of the film as a true commentary on "Peeping Tom," and not the gay banter of actors and crew trying to come up with things to say that are so disappointing on so many commentary tracks. There is a theatrical trailer, whose tenor seems quite at odds with the film itself, a gallery of production stills, and a Channel 4 U.K. documentary "A Very British Psycho," which relates the controversy of the film and interviews screenwriter Leo Marks and the critics who bashed the film on its release in 1962. You cannot help but feel that while it was Michael Powell's directing career that was ended up this film, it was Marks who should have suffered more as the writer is at least as disturbing a personality as his fictional creation in the film.
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