PEEPING TOM (1960) Movie Review

PEEPING TOM (1960)

Mark Lewis is a shy young man, who is always hiding behind either a camera at the movie studio he works at, or behind his small handheld camera wherever he goes walking. Recently, Mark has taken a further step in his voyeurism, as he leads women into a false sense of safety, and then films them as he murders them. Within Mark's huge home, in which lets out many or the rooms to his tenants, he has an impressive array of camera equipment, film developing stations, and projection equipment. He spends his free time watching his own movies, that is, until he meets one of his tenants, a young and beautiful girl named Helen. Helen's outgoing personality works as an opposite tangent to Mark, and the two start spending time together. Mark attempts as best he can to talk with her, though his introverted tendencies often thwart his attempts to show what he is thinking. The only way he can "talk" with Helen is to show her his films. Helen soon starts to learn just how Mark has come to be the way he is, while Mark starts to fear that he may be unable to hold back from showing Helen the true face of fear and terror.

Director Michael Powell, working from a script by playwright Leo Marks in his screenplay debut, takes a shocking and frightfully realistic view of a murderer in this character study that gives a depth to the history of the killer Mark, and how he has over years and years organically turned into a monster hiding behind a seemingly innocent face and soft-talking voice. The result is an unsettling dissection of the make-up of a killer, and much like the same year's PSYCHO, unknowingly set the ground rules of serial-killer suspense and horror, with its for-the-time raw and shocking murder sequences, the blending of sex and violence, and tense atmospheric buildup.

Marks' script takes a deep look into the psychological creation of Mark Lewis, with his obsession with voyeuristic filming and examination of fright in his victims stemming back to his father's work as a child psychologist, who used Mark as his constant subject and filmed him growing up. This is turn forced the audience to examine the often debated "nature versus nurture" aspects of humanity's villains, murderers, and hate-filled supremacists. Without Mark's father's interference and objective observation of his life, Mark would most likely have turned out to be a well adjusted adult. Bringing Mark believably to the screen was a vital part to making the film work. The part fell on the shoulders of German actor Carl Boehm. Boehm's naturally boyish looks, sympathetic eyes, and soft voice with just a hint of an accent created a harmless looking individual. He projects a deep and powerful performance that resonates still today in performances by those in roles where the murder is compelled or drawn against their will to kill, rather than having a desire to willingly kill.

Powell incorporates voyeurism onto the screen in a quite compelling way as he draws the audience into Mark's world. In the opening sequence, in which we are introduced to Mark and his first victim, we see most of the scene through the viewfinder of Mark's camera, as identified by a framing cross that cuts the entire screen into four quadrants. This shot is repeated multiple times throughout the film, whenever Mark is using his camera. Arguably, these are the most important shots of the film, as we are in a way seeing through Mark's eyes and what he believes to be the most important things worth remembering. Through these shots, we become active participants in Mark's obsession. However, when these shots are being played back on Mark's projector, with either Mark watching them, or showing them to others, Powell focuses his camera on the character rather than the projector screen. This plays especially important when Helen is subjected to Mark's horrific film collection. We watch her recoil in terror, but we do not know what she is watching, thus we become voyeurs to Helen's frightful emotions.

Halfway through the film, a police investigation subplot is introduced as Mark's victims are found and a correlation between the murders is discovered. Mark becomes intrigued with the police investigators, and films them unaware as they do interviews on the film set that Mark is working on. Mark fully believes that they will catch them, and Mark seems to want to be captured, even offering up evidence to the investigators without them realizing it. When Mark becomes a suspect, he is tailed and thus becomes the subject of voyeurism himself. It is a role reversal that works exceedingly well. Leo Marks' script gives the investigators some decent screen time, and their detail oriented attempt to solve the mystery would help to pave the way to the police murder mysteries later that decade.

Powell's final product is a visceral piece that was destroyed by critics, and generally hated by audiences not quite ready for such a personal introduction and relationship with a killer. The film essentially destroyed Powell's thirty-plus year film career. PEEPING TOM was well ahead of its time, and can be looked back upon now a groundbreaking entry into the modern horror thriller. The recent Documentary GOING TO PIECES even gave the film a proper nod as a precursor to the slasher. Before getting approval by the BFCC, many of the film's more grotesque shots were cut out and forever lost. The Criterion Collection has released the most complete version available, including a brief nude shot that was redone with the actress clothed for the American theatrical release. But whether it is the stigma of the title, or that the film is just too "British", PEEPING TOM has still yet to gain its proper place in the lexicon of classic cinema.

HOT FUZZ Review

HOT FUZZ (2007)

Edgar Wright, along with co-writer Simon Pegg and faithful stalwart Nick Frost, fuckin' love movies.

Nick Angel (Simon Pegg) is one of the best cops in all of London. He is so good that he makes the rest of his department look bad in comparison. His arrest rate is 400% higher than anyone else! So the higher ups do the only thing they can think of - promote him to sergeant and ship him off to work in Stanford, the safest village in all of England. Here, Angel soon discovers that life is on a slightly different path, where the biggest problems seem to be a recurring "living statue" performance artist and an escaped swan. Angel also discovers that the town, which hasn't had a reported murder in over twenty years, does seem to have an abnormal amount of fatal accidents. Angel's city-trained mind kicks into overdrive, as he works alongside his new partner Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) to put clues together that nobody sees. Angel's linked clues leads him to Simon Skinner (ex-Bond, Timothy Dalton) a local grocery store owner who may just have a bit too much to gain from the recent "accidents" of four locals, but will the rest of his squad even listen?

Three years after the fan-favorite genre-bender SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the powerhouse trio of Wright/Pegg/Frost (as well as under-noted producer Nira Park), who've been linked ever since the brilliant British TV show Spaced, return for another tour-de-force of action, excitement, comedy, over-the-top gore, and more loving references than you could ever hope to catch. The team is on top of their game and prove once again that adding a British accent to anything make it just that much better! HOT FUZZ glides with an almost supernatural ease from city cop/village cop mismatched buddy comedy to horrific giallo thriller complete with black-gloved killer and finally to the action movie mode featuring tidbits from every action movie ever made. Ever.

This is no mere parody though, but in essence a living, breathing mass consciousness of the action genre as it has evolved over that past thirty odd years. It is brought into existence by the main group mentioned above, with a complete understanding of what the genre means, and with the enthusiasm of a twelve-year old lad who has not become jaded from seeing too many disappointments on the big screen and revels in the excitement of explosions and the fascination with characters that may be bigger than life but with a core that can be connected with. This twelve-year old ideology of action is literally brought to the screen via Frost's somewhat dim and childish Danny, who not only asks just the right nudge-nudge-wink-wink questions to his new hero found in Pegg's Angel, but has to show him via home screenings of POINT BREAK and BAD BOYS II just what he is. It serves as both subtle set-up to later scenes but also take care of the pre-requisite scene in which the hero is shown by the love interest that he has never lost his will to do what needs to be done.

Every hero of course needs a villain, and Angel's main target of suspicion through the film is Simon Skinner, who is gleefully brought to the screen by Timothy Dalton. Dalton absolutely eat ups the opportunity to pop in and out as the is-he-or-isn't-he the bad guy of the film. His wonderful quips throughout the film, courtesy of the Wright/Pegg screenplay, egg Angel on, almost begging him to catch him in the act of a crime. Skinner always seems to be just one step ahead of Angel, almost able to perceive what Angel will do next. Not only does Dalton relish in the motifs of the antagonist, but he is also given a henchmen, a hulking brute that has been spawned by cross-breeding Night Court's Richard Moll, Lurch of The Addam's Family (the character is even called Lurch) and MOONRAKER's Jaws. If you need further proof for the love of all things "James", Tommy McCook and the Supersonics' "Down On Bond Street" get some action on the soundtrack.

Part of the fun of HOT FUZZ is seeing just how many different references can be caught. The greatest trick that the film pulls though, is that much like what SHAUN OF THE DEAD did with the zombie film and Spaced did with sit-coms, it metamorphoses into an honest-to-god action flick. People do not watch AIRPLANE! for the thrill of not knowing if the plane will make it. They do not watch SATURDAY THE 14th (thought I was going to say SCARY MOVIE, eh?) to be frightened. They do not watch ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS for period piece adventure and romance. They will watch this when they need an adrenaline rush. And that is what sets this apart from the others. And everybody on board this flick fuckin' knows it.

NIGHT OF THE HELL HAMSTERS Review

NIGHT OF THE HELL HAMSTERS (2006) On a dark and stormy night, Karl arrives at the house where his girlfriend Julie is babysitting. When Julie discovers that Karl has forgotten the Ouija board he promised to bring, she simply makes a makeshift board out of an alphabet puzzle, a shot glass, and a drop of Karl's blood. Karl calls upon a spirit with what he believes to be a made-up nonsense name. Unfortunately for Karl, his choice brings about a demonic force that possesses the family hamsters, and turns them into blood-thirsty critters with glowing eyes and a mischievous laugh. Karl is quickly taken out of commission, and Julie must take up the mantle of "final girl" if she is to survive the razor-sharp incisors of the hellish housepets!

In this ridiculously fantastic splatstick short film, first time director Paul Campion (whose visual effects resume includes work on LORD OF THE RINGS and SIN CITY) pulls out all the stops to weave elements of THE EVIL DEAD 2, THE BIRDS, GREMLINS, and especially the brief "killer rabbit" scene in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, all while taking production cues out of the official Ed Wood Jr. playbook. He even gets a little character development out of his actors before drenching them in red food colored karo syrup.

Now, Paul O'Neill and Stephanie Ratcliff to a fine job in their roles here, but it is the hamsters who obviously are the objects of affection in this little production. Post-possession, the real hamsters are replaced with obvious furry fakes, who are animated by easily visible fishing line and the puppeteering abilities of O'Neill and Ratcliff as they wrestle with the critters. These little furballs are not without a sense of humor either, as they laugh at Julie as she stumbles around trying to find them, or are compelled to roll around in a hamster ball before going in for the kill.

Minute for minute, HELL HAMSTERS holds up on the gore-o-meter with the likes of Sam Rami's DEAD trilogy and Peter Jackson's early film entries, as fingers are bitten off, hamsters are squashed and decapitated, and poor Julie gets a hemoglobin facial that would make Ron Jeremy or Peter North envious.

Campion has a winner on his hands here which has been making the festival rounds for eager fans waiting to get a glimpse at the madness he has built up. This will hopefully lead to more good ol' fashioned splatterrific fun or even a feature length redux of this short film. Hopefully this will find its way onto a short film compilation. This needs to be seen and lauded, as there are not very many things out there that only last fifteen minutes which are more enjoyable than.... NIGHT OF THE HELL HAMSTERS!

(NotHH Official Website)