When you have been living with the idea that your life is completely normal being terrified by your parents, the thought of harming someone else doesn't seem to enter your mind. That is the first impression I got from the movie Peeping Tom by Michael Powell in 1960. Upon further viewing, this movie is so much more than that, as the main character is attempting to become more main stream talking to Helen.
His torment began when his father would capture him on camera after throwing a lizard at him or catching him watching someone else in a romantic interlude over the fence. We never see Mark's father during the action in the movie, but his work is seen through Mark's actions and reactions to the terror in his victim's faces. The difference between Mark's victims and Helen is that Helen was never scared of Mark, only fascinated in his upbringing.
Mark knows what he's doing is wrong, but it's something that has haunted him since his father's passing. His plan to end his own life on film was creative and very clever for the time when this movie came out and to see it now, it's still remarkable that there hasn't been a movie today that has used his demise.
Of the movies we've watched this week, Peeping Tom seemed the most realistic. Quartemass 2 had an interesting story, but the devices were a bit clunky and ill fated for horror. Especially for today's audiences, the monsters of these early films seem to be more laughable that terrifying. The Crawling Eye gave me a few laughs in class as it lurched towards its victims. With Peeping Tom, the character of Mark could possibly exist, which makes the film more grounded and therefore more horrifying.
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