Peeping Tom, a film by Michael Powell, influential it seems on many directors of the past decades is one that had us both discussing the details, watching the technical aspects and heckling it for reasons that it can not avoid. Martin Scorsese discusses this film thoughtfully and with a film lovers eye for detail in his series A Personal Journey With Martin Scorsese: Through American Movies (if you haven't seen this series you are cheating yourself...truly)

However, the film has aged and been stolen from so many times (more recently One Hour Photo with Robin Williams) that a fresh eye to the piece has a hard time separating the faults of foolish Freudian analysis, goofy leaps of logic from the police tracking down the killer all the while remaining captivating for its use of colour, inventiveness with the camera and some dark comic moments.

A film worthwhile to a cinema buff but perhaps not for everyone as age isn't too kind the piece. However, also of note are the creepy and off-kilter line deliveries of Karlheinz Böhm in the role of Mark Lewis. Sometimes funny, sometimes creepy and consistently fascinating to watch.

Despite the somewhat downbeat tone of this review I do recommend it to fans of the Psycho horror style genre. Peeping Tom is often referred to as a British Psycho and ot without good reason...Psycho also has that horrible last 5 or six minutes full of psycho babble at the end that should be cut. I still give it a very solid 3 stars out of five, and had I seen the film when it was first released...I probably would have been much higher, bordering between 4 and 4.5.

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Copyright© Written By: Rob Paul
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