Peeping Tom (1960) (Criterion Collection)

Peep Peep I See You

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Feb 20, 2001

This movie was released in the same year as Psycho and much more frightening. The protoganist is a photographer for various smut-likemagazines who has a terriblly awkward time in personal situations.You can feel his uncomfortableness when the downst...airs neighbor showsan interest in him. What has happened to this man in his past thathe can only relate to people through his camera lens? And is thendriven to kill?Through the movie, his mystery slowly unravels. We learn why he'sonly comfortable w/ his camera and why he's driven to kill. Wealso see him attempt to cultivate a personal relationship (as opposed to voyeuristic relationship) with his downstairs neighborand the strain that causes him.A particularily eerie scene is where his blind downstairs neighborwanders into his camera room and "watches" one of his silentmovies. She almost serves as a metaphor for the audience; we'rewatching but we just don't "see" the personal hell this man livesin.Some might also consider this work as a study on modern society.We increasingly "live" our lives through representations of realityas dictated by the mass media. This view is obvously popular in this day among certain post-modern philosophers but I'm unsure thecurrency it had in the late 60s when this movie was made. Nonetheless, it's a throught worth exploring more.Overall, a pretty creepy look at a voyeur. Predominately psychological w/ little on-screen violence. An excellent "scary"movie (b/c it's scary for real.) Read more Less