Michael Powell’s controversial Peeping Tom is due to be released on Blu-Ray in January, a fact I didn’t know until after I chose the film as one of the entries in this year’s 31 Days of Halloween. The blurb for the new release contains this nifty plot synopsis-

‘Mark, a focus puller at the local film studio, supplements his wages by taking glamour photographs in a seedy studio above a newsagent. By night he is a sadistic killer, stalking his victims with his camera forever in his hand trying to capture the look of genuine, unadulterated fear – an obsession that stems from his disturbing and terrifying childhood at the hands of his scientist father. Mark slowly becomes enamoured with Helen, who lives with her blind mother in the flat downstairs, but how long before he turns the deadly gaze of his camera towards her?’

1960 seems to be a pivotal year for horror with Psycho being unleashed in America and Peeping Tom this side of the pond. Both films deal with controversial and then-unheard-of concepts that were integral to both film’s plots. But whilst Psycho was a huge success and solidified Hitchcock’s reputation as a master filmmaker, Peeping Tom garnered scathing reviews, was buried by its distributors because of this and all but halted Powell’s career. This is until a young filmmaker called Martin Scorsese (whatever happened to him?!) happened to see an uncut print of the film (the widely distributed US version was cut to smithereens) and started to tell all and sundry that it was a masterpiece that was clearly ahead of its time. It would seem that Scorsese’s opinion of the film was years later very much the norm as after a re-release (personally financed by Scorsese), critics started to give the film the kudos it rightly deserved.

Peeping Tom is a masterpiece. It feels like a journey into the darker side of London and the film industry. It almost feels like a piece of Mondo culture. Imagine a film released that deals with voyeurism, child abuse, prostitution and a young filmmaker who is making his own snuff movie. This is heady stuff but all the more brilliant because of it. Powell was clearly taking risks and paid dearly for it. It’s so nice that he was proven right with critics falling over themselves years later to laud Peeping Tom as the masterpiece it really is.

Powell’s direction and the cold and distant performance of Carl Boehm in the lead role as Mark make this a very special film indeed and a film that holds the honour of not being like any other film in the history of British cinema. 

The film is also open to many readings and interpretations with the idea of the audience watching the film being just as voyeuristic as Mark. Herein is another comparison with Psycho with both Mark and Norman Bates both seemingly friendly and ordinary on the surface but both being, in fact, voyeuristic killers.

It’s also been argued that Peeping Tom is ahead of its time as its conventions fit in nicely with the slasher film genre that wouldn’t take off properly until the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween. 

Peeping Tom is a genuinely disturbing film and one which now deserves the kudos it receives (it’s seen as one of the best horror films ever made). I look forward to the restored 4K Blu-Ray (fingers crossed for a cinema release to tie in with this). 

5 out of 5 stars