Criterion Collection (series)

Peeping Tom

DVD Features:

Description by OLDIES.com:

A frank exploration of voyeurism and violence, Michael Powell's extraordinary film is the story of a psychopathic cameraman - his childhood traumas, sexual crises, and murderous revenge as an adult. Reviled by critics upon its initial release for its deeply unsettling subject matter, the film has since been hailed a masterpiece.

Product Description:

An acclaimed and abhorred film about a man raised by a scientist who devoted his life to the study of the psychology of fear, using his own son as his guinea pig. As an adult the boy is obsessed with filming the deaths of beautiful young women, after causing them personally with his knife-wielding tripod. Powell aficionado Martin Scorsese brought the film out of obscurity in 1979.

Plot Synopsis:

Michael Powell directed this groundbreaking study in voyeurism, cinema, and obsession.
When Mark was a child, his father, a highly esteemed professor, used him as a form of laboratory rat in a series of experiments that tested various levels of fear. As an adult, Mark too maintains a fascination with terror, having matured into a psychopathic killer with a penchant for filming women on the verge of death. Since he works as a cameraman for a film studio, he easily indulges his fetish by luring aspiring actresses into isolated areas for "screen tests."
But then Mark meets Helen, a neighbor who wishes to become his friend... and the tormented murderer's downfall begins.

Plot Keywords:

Children | Cult Film | Essential Cinema | Family Interaction | Horror | Murder | Psychos | Recommended | Suspense | Theatrical Release

Production Notes:

• The Home Vision Cinema VHS version is digitally re-mastered. The print used is from the Janus collection.
• Voyager's laserdisc #CC1299L is part of the company's Criterion Collection. It was digitally transferred from a 35mm Low Contrast Print and features an audio commentary by film theorist Laura Mulvey on the alternate soundtrack.
• Shot in Eastman color.
• A Michael Powell production.
• Director Michael Powell appeared in the role of Mark's father.
• Copyright 1960 Michael Powell Theatre LTD.
• The film was re-released in the United States in 1994.
• Rated BBFC 18 by the British Board of Film Classification.

Cast and Crew: