{"id":501,"date":"2025-08-01T03:34:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=501"},"modified":"2025-08-30T17:10:50","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T21:10:50","slug":"peeping-tom-1960","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=501","title":{"rendered":"Peeping Tom-1960"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peeping Tom-1960<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Michael Powell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Nigel Davenport<\/strong><\/p>\n

Top 250 Films #47<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Top 40 Horror Films #10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #127<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"848669\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed July 22, 2014<\/p>\n

Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peeping Tom is a brilliant 1960 horror film directed by Michael Powell.<\/p>\n

It is a British film released the same year as Psycho. The two films share similarities in that they both feature more character-driven villains than many other contemporary horror films.<\/p>\n

Both feature male killers with a sympathetic (to them) female.<\/p>\n

Set in London, it tells the story of an assistant cameraman who kills his victims by using a camera with a spike on the end of it as he is videotaping the fear in their eyes, which he later plays back for his own psychological needs.<\/p>\n

The killer has emotionally damaged himself, and the film explores this aspect in depth; his father tormented him as a child with weird, traumatic experiments used on the boy for research.<\/p>\n

I love this aspect of the film compared with other films of the genre, where the killer typically has no sympathetic aspects and whose motivations are usually explored minimally.<\/p>\n

The audience has sympathy for this killer, which, strangely, is absurd and shocking.<\/p>\n

Ahead of its time, viewers were initially turned off by the film upon its release. Director Michael Powell’s (ironically playing the terrible father in videotape scenes) career was ruined.<\/p>\n

Anna Massey (later to appear in the Hitchcock masterpiece Frenzy, 1972) plays the sweet-natured girl next door who develops a crush on the killer. Her blind and boozy mother is a fascinating character as she suspects and strangely bonds with the killer.<\/p>\n

The film has an erotic and voyeuristic quality that has been unmatched in horror.<\/p>\n

Peeping Tom (1960) is now widely regarded as a masterpiece, and I concur with that assessment. It is one of the most interesting and unique horror films ever made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peeping Tom-1960 Director Michael Powell Starring Nigel Davenport Top 250 Films #47 Top 40 Horror Films #10 Scott’s Review #127 Reviewed July 22, 2014 Grade: A Peeping Tom is a brilliant 1960 horror film directed by Michael Powell. It is a British film released the same year as Psycho. The two films share similarities in … Continue reading Peeping Tom-1960<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7599,8054,16,5168,440,434,13,5167,5170,527,4187,5169,7457,7530,7532,7464,7536,7465],"tags":[7598,8055,57,5172,441,435,248,5171,5174,530,4190,5173,7459,7533,7535,7460,7537,7461],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-favorite-horror-film","category-47-favorite-film","category-1960-films","category-anna-massey","category-british-films","category-british-horror-films","category-horror-films","category-karlheinz-bohm","category-maxine-audley","category-michael-powell","category-moira-shearer","category-shirley-anne-field","category-top-10-horror-films","category-top-100-films","category-top-20-horror-films","category-top-250-films","category-top-40-horror-films","category-top-50-films","tag-10-favorite-horror-film","tag-47-favorite-film","tag-1960-movie-reviews","tag-anna-massey","tag-british-films","tag-british-horror-films","tag-horror-films","tag-karlheinz-bohm","tag-maxine-audley","tag-michael-powell","tag-moira-shearer","tag-shirley-anne-field","tag-top-10-horror-films","tag-top-100-films","tag-top-20-horror-films","tag-top-250-films","tag-top-40-horror-films","tag-top-50-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22005,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/22005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}