Based on what transpired after it hit theaters back in 1960, one could almost say that career suicides don’t come any better or more stylish than acclaimed director Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom. Controversial immediately upon release in the UK, the film was banned for many years from public showings in some countries, but took on a life of its own as the years passed and is seen as a genre classic by many horror fans today.

Despite its age, there are some extremely intriguing psychological themes and visual elements some easily upset types will probably find shocking. That said, it’s not as if Powell planned on his directing life in Britain going down the drain with this film. He was simply applying his well-honed talents all too well to a screenplay that happened to be extremely well-written and precise in its portrayal of a very troubled photographer and his special camera…

I won’t ruin too much of the plot at all for you because part of what makes this film so great is seeing it from the beginning and getting caught up in its characters and their assorted issues. Comparisons can be made only superficially to Hitchcock’s Psycho, as both films deal with murderers who have past parental issues that helped mold them into the not so fine and upstanding citizens they turned out to be. Still, as far as personalities go, Norman Bates would probably be a nicer dinner companion than Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm or Carl Boehm) a rather strange and methodical photographer/filmmaker with a little side hobby that’s quite deadly to anyone he points his camera at with intent to take more than a few pin-up shots.

Unlike Norman, you most likely won’t really feel sorry for Mark at all because he’s an unlikable guy from the beginning and only gets more odd as the film goes on. Well, OK… you’ll probably feel something when his back story is told, but from the outset, he’s a young man driven by his madness past any point of recovery. The sedate yet relentless way he operates is one of the more chilling things about the film – Mark’s actions seem normal to him (but not to others), while Norman reacts abnormally in certain situations, but is otherwise a more sympathetic character. Well, as sympathetic as a guy who killed and mummified his mother can be…

As for the film itself, it’s a wonder to watch a master director at work, as Powell’s use of color, some amazing close ups and practical effects are all brilliant in the service of delivering a truly scary slice of terror to the viewer. You pretty much know who’s going to get it, but the director invites you to become a voyeur as you’re glued to your seat willingly watching what transpires. While the film is supremely tame compared to modern horror flicks, the generally downbeat tone and the director’s mixing of gloriously shot color sequences (there’s a fantastic dance scene that would almost be at home in Powell’s The Red Shoes) were probably too much for critics and audiences who hung onto their every word back then…

It could also have been that nearly every woman in the film is objectified in a negative manner, with only the striking, moon-eyed Anna Massey (who would interestingly enough, play a character who suffers a dire fate a dozen years later in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy) coming away “relatively” unscathed. Or as “unscathed” as a young lady could be after befriending Lewis’ soft-spoken murderer. Or, perhaps it was because Powell was so ahead of the curve (once more) that this film seemed all too “real” to those who’d love to have proved back then that what one sees in a movie theater is one of the direct causes to violence outside that venue.

I recall seeing this for the first time on tape back in the early 90’s and that opening sequence being powerful yet implausibly crazy enough to keep me seated until the finale… whereupon I rewound the tape and watched the film again because so many images stood out. Of course, the best and only way to see this or any horror film is to let yourself fall into what the writer and director have made and ride with the top down and seat belts off, unlocked passenger door optional. Once the film has you under its spell, it’s clear that Powell’s career didn’t kill itself at all – it was the foolish, prudish critics that forced it into “jump, fell or was pushed” territory, and that’s a damn shame…