Peeping Tom (1960, Michael Powell) (Patreon)

78/100

Second viewing, last seen 1996. Still seems remarkably dangerous six decades later, thanks to Boehm's unnerving performance (enhanced by the thick German accent nobody ever acknowledges), the lurid Eastmancolor palette, and a general air of casual seediness that one just doesn't readily associate with that era. Psychologically and thematically, the film's arguably a bit muddled, though one could argue that its main DSM-5 issue—conflating voyeurism and sadism—is fully justified by the camera-as-weapon reflexivity. ("It's only a camera!" one detective shouts to another in the final scene, to which his colleague incredulously replies "Only?" This is before they have any idea how it's been modified, note.) But Rear Window handles that idea more adeptly/subtly, and I submit that Peeping Tom reached disturbing new heights in the age-old realm of Eros + Thanatos. Moira Shearer's scene is basically Singin' in the Rain's "You Were Meant for Me" duet restaged as a solo horror number, with music explicitly meant to arouse. When Helen's blind mother shows up in Mark's room, asking him to describe the literal snuff film he's watching, their dynamic as she leaves suggests not so much a potential murder averted but the mutual mortification of a mother- and son-in-law who very nearly fucked each other. Sex, violence, fear and cinema get indiscriminately tossed together in ways that sometimes make sense and sometimes don't, though the latter instances hardly seem to matter when e.g. Mark willingly hands the police his camera and then stealthily freaks out as one detective proceeds to fiddle with it for the entire interrogation. Bonus points for Powell creating magnificent tension during what's basically an exposition dump re: Mark's cruel childhood (Manhunter could have taken a cue from that scene, rather than throwing out Dolarhyde's entire history), and for a (very brief) climactic look directly into the lens that for once has a legitimate function. Obviously pretty great, really; having just revisited Back to the Future last week, I couldn't help but imagine Marty McFly sheepishly telling a 1960 audience, post-screening: "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."