It does make you wonder whether Michael Powell and Alfred Hitchcock were aware of each other’s then-new films in 1960 on either side of the Atlantic.
PSYCHO (1960) is readily recognised as one of the all-time great chillers, based on Robert Bloch‘s novel of the same name, which was a revolution in terms of box-office promotion and Hitchcock’s refusal to allow anyone to enter the cinema after the credits began.
The film’s ongoing power hinges on the shower scene and a couple of other key scenes (yes, I know it’s been around for over sixty years, but this is spoiler-free and you know which ones!). The story of Anthony Perkins lonely-hearts motelier, with his mother in the window was derived from Ed Gein‘s real-life exploits in Wisconsin in the 1950s which later formed the basis for THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) amongst others.
Closer to home but no less a revelation in tone (though perhaps tamer at times unlike the Hitchcock classic), Michael Powell‘s PEEPING TOM is about to get a brand-new 4K / UHD / Blu-ray restoration courtesy of Studio Canal’s ‘Vintage Classics’ series. Revered by the likes of Martin Scorsese, whose long-term editor Thelma Schoonmaker also kept it visible in the legacy of her late husband, the film takes us back to a time when shocks were few and far between in an age of post-war Conservative Britain when we never had it so good.
Somebody who doesn’t seem to have anything resembling that is the film’s main protagonist, Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm). He works at a film studio as a focus puller, but in his spare time he works as a photographer at a sleazy studio taking pictures for under the counter sales at the newsagent which situates the studio below.
Lewis is also hiding traumatic memories from his life with his deceased parents, which he expresses through the use of a camera he keeps at all times. His exploits in the dark back alleyways of Central London yield victims who he films to get a sense of fear.
He is also the landlord of a building bequeathed to him due to his dead parents – and it is here that he meets fellow tenant Helen (Anna Massey) who lives with her blind mother (Maxine Audley). Helen becomes curious about the man who lives in the flat upstairs, learning about what it is. However, his nocturnal obsessions are about to come to the fore and surface…
Whilst the murders on screen are more suggestive and perhaps less shocking than they were in terms of overall effect on the audience on the original release (and well-documented legacy in terms of the effect it had on Powell’s already well-respected career), the context and pay-offs within PEEPING TOM remain as powerful as it did then, given the awareness of mental breakdown and our desires to get to the heart of what motivates the darkness in both heart and mind.
This is a movie that is essential viewing to fans of more contemporary horror offerings that were inspired, notably the boom of stalk and slash films that came out due to the success of John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (of which the opening visuals more than lend the sense of homage to that horror classic).
The release is also accompanied by a number of insightful extras that will appease and please those cineastes needing an education.
PEEPING TOM is available to buy from January 29th, 2024.
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