Monday, February 15, 2016

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #38 Peeping Tom

Peeping Tom was the movie identified in Scream 4 as the first “Slasher” film on the basis that it was the first movie to put the audience in the killer’s perspective. I disagree strongly with this assessment, because to me, that isn’t what a “Slasher” is. I’ve always defined a “Slasher” based on killers who kill people in quick, brutal, graphic, and often creative ways. Peeping Tom, on the other hand, has the killer act in a much slower and almost meditative manner.



That said, I decided before writing this review to look up the articles on Wikipedia and TVTropes, and found that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of consensus on what defines a “Slasher.” The most typical element they agree on seems to be that a “Slasher” is motivated by revenge. This is something I regard as typical, simply because it’s an easy motive to write, but not necessary. However, going by this definition, once again, Peeping Tom is not a “Slasher” film. The villain, while traumatized, does not believe that his victims have wronged him.



This is a movie that I could write volumes about. The killer is a complex character. The norm for killers is to either make them perfect charmers or social rejects. Mark (Carl Boehm), our killer, is socially awkward, due largely to the horrific experiences he had as a child. But he’s able to push his awkwardness aside and be charming when he needs to be. It makes him hard to read, as his reactions give off both compulsion and calculation.



He works as both a Hollywood camera man and a photographer of soft-core pornography. His behavior is noticeably different between the two jobs. When dealing with the nude models he’s more awkward and obtuse, while he tries to be friendlier when dealing with his co-workers at the film studio. Presumably, the commentary here is that he sees the former as beneath notice, and thus sees less reason to put on a mask for them.



Mark’s father was a biologist who experimented on Mark by filming him in stressful situations to study his reaction. These ranged from throwing a lizard into his bed to filming him as he said goodbye to his dying mother. This gave Mark a strange obsession with capturing things on film, with a camera as his window to emotionally distance himself from the world. Therefore, he films his victims as they die, holding up a mirror to them so that they grow even more horrified at the terror of their own expressions. His weapon is a sharp blade on one of the legs of his camera tripod, making the camera itself literally deadly.



Mark’s shell is cracked by Helen (Anna Massey), a young woman who rents a room with her blind mother in his home. Helen was not even aware that Mark was her landlord, as he inherited the house from his father and lives in a room like one of the tenants. Helen begins a romance with Mark, not knowing that he’s a killer, but knowing that he’s been damaged by his father and wanting to help him form a more normal relationship. We already know Helen’s attempts to get through to him are doomed though, and that Mark is too far gone.



Mark commits three murders over the course of the film, and it’s to the film’s credit that director, Michael Powell manages to make each one unique. The first murder, and the only one in which we see the moment of death (despite the lack of blood) is a prostitute who Mark kills simply because she was a convenient victim. The second is a woman who works as a stand-in on the studio film Mark is working on. This murder follows an elaborate dance sequence, as she thinks she’s helping Mark make a movie of his own.



The final murder seems to be a sort of suicide-by-cop scenario. Mark knows that he’s been followed by the police, and kills one of the nude models he works with during a session, apparently with the intent of leading the police to him. This murder we’re never shown at all, Mark closes the shutters, approaches the woman and the scene fades to black. He then creates a finale for what he calls his “documentary” by killing himself on his own tri-pod blade while the cameras roll.



This finale is complicated by Helen’s discovery of his films. She attempts to convince Mark to give himself up to the police rather than go through with his suicide. These scenes should be required viewing in Film School for how to do exposition correctly. Mark gives Helen a lecture on his theory that the scariest thing in the world is fear itself, and shows her the mirror he makes his victims look into. However, this doesn’t come across as a data-dump, as we’re shown Helen’s desperation to know and Mark’s reluctance to expound, giving emotional weight to the revelation. We’re shown what’s significant to him and what drives him as a character, rather than simply being given a bland explanation of what has happened.



The scene that the movie is best known for is likely Helen’s mother (Maxine Audley) breaking into Mark’s apartment to talk to him. We believe Mark is going to kill her, but she’s unable to see what’s on his films, and he eventually lets her go. However, the two of them create a dynamic that’s like fire and ice. Mark is obsessed with the visual and lacks emotional connections, while the mother (she’s never identified by name) uses her other senses to understand Mark in a way no one else does, seeing him as a danger to her daughter and asking him to leave her alone. She can tell by his movements and by his tone that he’s dangerous, sneaky and up to no good. You could debate whether she knows he’s a murderer, but I feel she did. When Mark promises never to film her daughter, she says she doesn’t want him to get the chance, indicating she knows that he kills the women he films.



This movie infamously destroyed Michael Powell’s career because it was considered so shocking in 1960. I don’t think that it’s ‘shocking’ today, but it is legitimately frightening. It’s a horror movie about ideas, in which the killer is aware of his own twisted mind. Not in a self-serving or self-justifying way, he never attempts to justify his actions, but rather, as an acceptance of himself as evil.



This is an amazing movie. If you don’t see it, then you’ve done yourself a great injustice. Never let me say that a movie is “not simply horror,” as I would never seek to marginalize my own favorite genre. However, this is indisputably a great film. It’s not a “Slasher” film by my definition, but it’s up there with Psycho in the annals of horror.

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