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From Amazon.co.uk
Michael Powell lays bare the cinema's dark voyeuristic underside in this disturbing 1960 psychodrama thriller. Handsome young Carl Boehm is Mark Lewis, a shy, socially clumsy young man shaped by the psychic scars of an emotionally abusive parent, in this case a psychologist father (the director in a perverse cameo) who subjected his son to nightmarish experiments in fear and recorded every interaction with a movie camera. Now Mark continues his father's work, sadistically killing young women with a phallic-like blade attached to his movie camera and filming their final, terrified moments for his definitive documentary on fear. Set in contemporary London, which Powell evokes in a lush, colourful seediness, this film presents Mark as much victim as villain and implicates the audience in his scopophilic activities as we become the spectators to his snuff film screenings. Comparisons to Hitchcock's Psycho, released the same year, are inevitable. Powell's film was reviled upon release, and it practically destroyed his career, ironic in light of the acclaim and success that greeted Psycho, but Powell's picture hit a little too close to home with its urban setting, full colour photography, documentary techniques and especially its uneasy connections between sex, violence and the cinema. We can thank Martin Scorsese for sponsoring its 1979 re-release, which presented the complete, uncut version to appreciative audiences for the first time. This powerfully perverse film was years ahead of its time and remains one of the most disturbing and psychologically complex horror films ever made. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
Product Description
United Kingdom released, Blu-Ray/Region B DVD: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (1.66:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Cast/Crew Interview(s), Commentary, Interactive Menu, Photo Gallery, Remastered, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: Mark Lewis, works as a focus puller in a British film studio. On his off hours, he supplies a local porno shop with cheesecake photos and also dabbles in filmmaking. A lonely, unfriendly, sexually repressed fellow, Mark is obsessed with the effects of fear and how they are registered on the face and behavior of the frightened. This obsession dates from the time when, as a child, he served as the subject of some cold-blooded experiments in the psychology of terror conducted by his own scientist father. As a grown man, Mark becomes a compulsive murderer who kills women and records their contorted features and dying gasps on film. His ongoing project is a documentary on fear. With 16mm camera in hand, he accompanies a prostitute to her room and stabs her with a blade concealed in his tripod, all the while photographing her contorted face in the throes of terror and death. Alone in his room, he surrounds himself with the sights and sounds of terror: taped screams, black-and-white 'home movies' of convulsed faces. At his house, he meets Helen Stephens, a young woman who lives with her blind mother in a downstairs flat. She visits his flat, where he shows her black-and-white films that were taken of him when he was a child. She is horrified to see that his father used him as a guinea pig in various experiments, taking movies of his reactions of fear. ...Peeping Tom (1960) ( Face of Fear ) ( Röntgenci ) (Blu-Ray)
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
By Anton
Format:DVD
At last a decent DVD release for this disturbing classic from nearly fifty years ago. Vilified and treated like a video nasty on its initial release this trip inside the mind of a pyschopath is still so fresh and refreshing. Recommended for all students of serious horror, the tale of a disturbed young mind with a blade on his camera tripod filming his victims expressions as he kills them is utterly gripping. Acting all round is top notch in a production way ahead of it's time. Recommended.
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Also released in 1960, Peeping Tom disgusted the censors and outraged the British Press to such a degree that Director Michael Powell found he had to move to Australia if he wished to continue his filmmaking career! The theme of scopophilia (pleasure from watching) is at the centre of this daringly ground-breaking movie as an affected cameraman (Mark) films the fear of the girls he murders to watch again and again! As he becomes emotionally entangled with his live-in tennant, his love for her becomes confused with his sociopathic desire to film her when she becomes frightened. A dark and interesting film, Peeping Tom addresses the very nature of cinema and the viewers' apparent complicity in the subject matter.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:DVD
This DVD is a vast, VAST improvement on the VHS edition of this wonderful film.
Presented in anamorphic widescreen, Peeping Tom shows the seedy-looking cinematography in all of its glory, and the soundtrack is pin-sharp, making the most of Brian Easdale's haunting piano music.
Buy this for the film, not for the extras.
Presented in anamorphic widescreen, Peeping Tom shows the seedy-looking cinematography in all of its glory, and the soundtrack is pin-sharp, making the most of Brian Easdale's haunting piano music.
Buy this for the film, not for the extras.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Biffer Spice
Format:DVD
Peeping Tom (1960)
This is one of those films that is well preceded by its backstory. Director Michael Powell, one half of one of Britain's most famous filmmakers, Powell and Pressburger, committed career suicide with this film. The British public were so offended by this offering that the studios pretty much closed their doors to him, and one of our greatest filmmakers ever was prematurely finished, at the height of his powers. Only later, championed by the likes of Scorcese, did the world reevaluate Peeping Tom, and come to agree that it is a masterpiece. As a loss to filmmaking, it seems a similar story to that of Buster Keaton, after making the General, when it was a massive flop, and Keaton was not allowed the freedom to make his own films any more. He became a sideman, tied to a long-running inescapable contract, and ended up a frustrated alcoholic. Later, the film was recognised to be a masterpiece, some say the greatest silent film ever made, and one wistfully wonders what he might have produced had he not had his creative hands tied in such disastrous fashion.
This film, as you'd expect upon hearing of the reaction it forced from the public of the time, is brutal and shocking. Compared to Psycho (although Hitchcock suffered no similar public disgust), it is the story of a man who is only a "focus puller" in the movies, but who longs to be a film-maker. In his part time, he kills women with his camera, filming their last moments. By seeing what he sees while he does it, we are drawn into the murderer's mind perhaps more than in other killer films, and one wonders if this is one reason it feels so much more uncomfortable than other killer movies. Another reason for the outcry is that we don't see this man as just a cold-blooded killer.... Read more ›
This is one of those films that is well preceded by its backstory. Director Michael Powell, one half of one of Britain's most famous filmmakers, Powell and Pressburger, committed career suicide with this film. The British public were so offended by this offering that the studios pretty much closed their doors to him, and one of our greatest filmmakers ever was prematurely finished, at the height of his powers. Only later, championed by the likes of Scorcese, did the world reevaluate Peeping Tom, and come to agree that it is a masterpiece. As a loss to filmmaking, it seems a similar story to that of Buster Keaton, after making the General, when it was a massive flop, and Keaton was not allowed the freedom to make his own films any more. He became a sideman, tied to a long-running inescapable contract, and ended up a frustrated alcoholic. Later, the film was recognised to be a masterpiece, some say the greatest silent film ever made, and one wistfully wonders what he might have produced had he not had his creative hands tied in such disastrous fashion.
This film, as you'd expect upon hearing of the reaction it forced from the public of the time, is brutal and shocking. Compared to Psycho (although Hitchcock suffered no similar public disgust), it is the story of a man who is only a "focus puller" in the movies, but who longs to be a film-maker. In his part time, he kills women with his camera, filming their last moments. By seeing what he sees while he does it, we are drawn into the murderer's mind perhaps more than in other killer films, and one wonders if this is one reason it feels so much more uncomfortable than other killer movies. Another reason for the outcry is that we don't see this man as just a cold-blooded killer.... Read more ›
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase
Peeping Tom, as well as Michael Powell's talent, never looked so great.
A fantastic edition, which perfectly fits in the previous BD edition of other Powell's movies.
Hope more of his masterpieces will come out soon (Matter of LIfe and Death - Colonel Blimp . etc..)
A fantastic edition, which perfectly fits in the previous BD edition of other Powell's movies.
Hope more of his masterpieces will come out soon (Matter of LIfe and Death - Colonel Blimp . etc..)
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a great, unpleasant, disturbing film made by Michael Powell three years after he and his partner in the Archers, Emeric Pressburger, went their own ways. British critics loathed it, said so loudly, and the movie died within weeks of its release. Some say it destroyed Powell's career.
Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) is a young man who works as a camera puller at a movie studio, who also at night photogaphs girlie pictures for magazines. His father, a psychologist, studied the effects of fear by putting his son in terrible situations and then photographing the child's reactions. Lewis lives in the second floor of a house and often watches those movies while he sits alone in the dark.
Lewis also does something else. In the tripod of his camera there is a concealed knife. As he photographs a girl the knife pushes into her, while the camera films her face as she realizes she is going to die and then while she is dying. He plays back these movies, too. As you watch Peeping Tom you become a voyeur participant in what he is doing. He meets the young woman who lives below him and it is apparent that she is at first curious about him, but then attracted to him. He finds within himself an attraction that might be love, might be salvation, but which is conflicted. The movie plays out with tension, remorse and even sympathy. The ending is somewhat unexpected, but with hindsight also inevitable.
And maybe that is what made this movie so controversial. Lewis is a sympathetic figure. You know what his father put him through because you've watched those old movies. Boehm playes Lewis as a shy, nice, rather sad young man. Anna Massey, who plays Helen Stephens, the girl on the first floor, is a first-rate actress and in this role she is excellent.... Read more ›
Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) is a young man who works as a camera puller at a movie studio, who also at night photogaphs girlie pictures for magazines. His father, a psychologist, studied the effects of fear by putting his son in terrible situations and then photographing the child's reactions. Lewis lives in the second floor of a house and often watches those movies while he sits alone in the dark.
Lewis also does something else. In the tripod of his camera there is a concealed knife. As he photographs a girl the knife pushes into her, while the camera films her face as she realizes she is going to die and then while she is dying. He plays back these movies, too. As you watch Peeping Tom you become a voyeur participant in what he is doing. He meets the young woman who lives below him and it is apparent that she is at first curious about him, but then attracted to him. He finds within himself an attraction that might be love, might be salvation, but which is conflicted. The movie plays out with tension, remorse and even sympathy. The ending is somewhat unexpected, but with hindsight also inevitable.
And maybe that is what made this movie so controversial. Lewis is a sympathetic figure. You know what his father put him through because you've watched those old movies. Boehm playes Lewis as a shy, nice, rather sad young man. Anna Massey, who plays Helen Stephens, the girl on the first floor, is a first-rate actress and in this role she is excellent.... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A disturbing, classic.
This is not for the faint hearted although most of the violence is off camera. It is a disturbing classic which has aged well. Read more
Published 28 days ago by Bookworm
5.0 out of 5 stars
Erm...
Nothing to say really i wanted this film for ages and it was going for a great price, the seller was quick in despatching and it plays well. Great film too if you like this genre!
Published 2 months ago by FRANCISCO L VALLE
5.0 out of 5 stars
Way ahead of its time
I purchased this movie with knowing little about it; I only knew the basic premise. The way in which this film is shot and the way it handles its subject matter is quite... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Andrew Carroll
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning film
It may be uncomfortable viewing at times but this is a film that has belatedly become a classic. The performances of Carl Boehm and Anna Maasey are brilliant. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Agnetha
5.0 out of 5 stars
Peeping Tom Special Edition Blue Ray DVD
This DVD was purchased for someone else as a Christmas present so I have not seen it to carry out a review. Product delivered within the stated timescale.
Published 16 months ago by Minuteman
4.0 out of 5 stars
Time capsule
21st century cinema goers aren't especially shocked by films which depict serial killers venturing into the seedier realms of society to look for their victims. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Dariush Alavi
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing film, good extras on this disc
Controversial on release and instrumental in severely damaging the director's career, this is now seen as a classic, and with good reason! Read more
Published 19 months ago by M. Wood
3.0 out of 5 stars
Watchable but not that special
This film is curious, and the reaction to it is equally intriguing. I wonder does it depict a film maker renouncing his art? Read more
Published on 3 May 2011 by William Cohen
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Greatest British Film? Silly to think of it as horror (only)
It is bursting with ideas, being visually powerful but with feet firmly rooted to the ground. The British critics, hamstrung in their treatment of Powell due to their hang-up: the... Read more
Published on 4 Feb 2011 by Simon Turner
3.0 out of 5 stars
Bit boring these days
Many years ago I saw the last reel of this picture several times as it was being runby a projectionist at Pinewood. Read more
Published on 2 Feb 2011 by Michael J. Rossiter
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