Quick recap: Can a creepy guy go creepier? Oh, yes he can. Very much so.

Fun (?) fact: Peeping Tom is considered one of the first slasher films. It was so edgy it apparently destroyed the career of its director, Michael Powell.

You really don’t see much slashing until the end of the movie

My thoughts: Although none of the scenes in Peeping Tom scared me, most of them weirded me out and the whole concept of a killer photographer is very unsettling. After finishing the movie, I found myself disappointed for once at the lack of gore. After thinking about it some, though, I really don’t think it would’ve changed the movie all that much. Based on the description of the corpses (terrified look on their faces and slashed to bits), I’m not sure any visual would’ve matched what I imagined.

Karlheinz Böhm as Mark the serial killer was the most perfect casting. He reminded me of the kind of person Thomas Harris might dream up, like the murderer in Red Dragon. I loved that he was both sympathetic and also just really freaking nuts. His hobby of watching and rewatching the final moments of his victims was disturbing but I was even more weirded out by his home movies. Talk about dysfunction, with Mark’s father basically grooming him to be the ‘peeping tom’ he later turned into. I was a little disappointed that the father was doing experiments on him as a scientist because it would’ve been all the more disturbing had there been no reason at all.

I think my favorite part of the film was watching Mark and Vivian’s relationship. I fully expected him to murder her when she first came over to bring him some cake. The entire time she was in his apartment I wanted to shout at her to get out of there but then he showed her his creepy movies and I loved the humanity from both of them. For Mark, you could see a direct line between his childhood trauma and current serial killer status and for Vivian, I absolutely loved that even though she was disturbed, it wasn’t out of fear of Mark. I didn’t like the ending when he couldn’t hold back any more and tried to kill her but after following him around for the entire film, it was completely in his character to do so.

Final review: 4/5

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