Carys Manjdadria-Jenkins Carys Manjdadria-Jenkins looks back on Powell’s controversial horror with its unflinching 4K restoration.
The 4K restoration of Michael Powell’s 1960 psychological horror Peeping Tom indulges
the voyeur’s eyes. Celluloid murders are committed by the titular Mark Lewis, played by an
offsetting Carl Boem, whose slasher weapon is characteristically 20th century. Powell’s
film is one of psychological complexity, exploring the phenomenon of fear through the
voyeurism of the camera, questioning the morality of what we enjoy on the silver screen.
Mark stalks the city with his camera, murdering women with the sharp end of his tripod
whilst filming their final moments. Developing them in his darkroom, the photographic
space is transformed into the symbolic darkness of his mind and its desires. Throughout,
photography becomes weaponised, as the tantalising shooting, splicing, and capturing of
image tether technology and violence. This process of capturing is particular to Mark’s
sexual desire. His pleasure lies not in his victim’s bodies but in their image; it is through
screening the footage that his fetish is fulfilled. Faces warp to fill the screen, lit out of the
darkness by the palette of the Soho sex district. The dangerous sexuality of image and
technology surrounds Mark in symbolism of pin-up girls, actresses in films, and, for today’s
viewers, in the widespread availability of online porn and the immoral dangers so many
connect it to.
The restoration by the Film Foundation and BFI National Archive, in association with
Studio Canal, once again reckons audiences with the morality of the contents of our
cinema screens. Though critics of the time deemed it morally unforgivable, modern day
desensitisation to violence through the mosaic of media screened on television and at a
fingers touch on our phones necessitates a second viewing of the classic. The film’s
criticism of the audience is in fact rife. Mark’s adoration of celluloid violence attacks that of
the spectator, predating Haneke’s satire of tortue-porn in Funny Games. Unlike
Haneke’s 1997 horror, Peeping Tom delves into what would become the slasher subgenre,
centring on sexual violence towards women and heralding a final girl, despite the
overcoming of the slasher being at his own tripod hand. Looking back through the lens of
what the genre has now become may underwhelm our new tolerance towards violence.
Though there is fear, there is no splatter film sadism, or a Freddy Krueger style
supernatural twist. The fear is constructed through Powell’s mastering of suspense and
underscoring of realism, serving as a reminder that some of the best thrillers can be found
not in cinemas, but in our newspapers.
