What is the plot - in one sentence? A Young photographer and cinema worker shows us his life's work...
I don't have time, just spoil it for me? It involves capturing absolute terror, the absolute terror of being stabbed by a specially rigged weaponised camera which kills them. The police move in on him, and the movie ends with his suicide, which is also captured on his cameras.
What is the meaning of the title? His name is Mark, so that's a missed opportunity, but he's a Peeping Tom, and by implication, we are too, as we watch him.
Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? Not slapped around, but exploited and murdered, so there's that going on. Has it aged well? Maybe? This is a pretty notable movie. It appears on 'best of British movie' lists and such, so I was happy to finally get around to seeing it. I am also legally bound to mention that it was released the same year as 'Psycho' with which shares some thematic similarities. I will class both as somewhat dated but still interesting movies, with Psycho being a better movie. I don't think that's too controversial.
Any thoughts? The main guy is kind of blandly handsome and polite but shy. But... he's inexplicably German-accented, and is so awkward that everyone would instantly be suspicious of him. We're also shown that his 'murderous affliction' might have been passed to him by his father, a renowned psychologist who experimented in terror on the young boy. He shows a video of himself as a child being woken by a lizard or something, and his terrified reaction to it. In essence, he's taken over the family voyeur business and branched it out into murder.
He meets a psychiatrist later on in the movie (for... reasons) and comes as close as he can to admitting that he's a murderer to him, but the guy just ignores it and mentions it in passing to the police, yet another incompetent movie psychologist.
Note also, that he chooses to show videos of him being tortured as a child to a woman he's just met who asked to see some of his work - he could have just shown her some actual work that he's been doing. A similar thing happens when a murder happens in the movie stages where he's working (more on that later) and the police investigate, asking EVERYONE in the company to help with their inquiries. He sits around looking terrified and terrifying, and none of the police suspect anything, they even comment on the camera he has, is that meant to be funny? I guess so, but jeez. It was a simpler time then if that was just allowed to happen. Another good line from the police is 'we do have a maniac on our hands,' which is said with English confidence.
We also have another
'blind saviour' character - the mother of a young woman who, for some
reason, takes a liking to the hero of the movie. The young woman, who
looks like Karen Dunbar, and despite our man saying hardly anything,
goes out of her way to woo him, and even tries to get herself to be
killed by him. He does his best 'stop my hand from moving to kill
her' acting, it reminded me of that bit in Road House where his hand
is quivering with desire to tear a throat out. It was a bit ridiculous.
He also has a room where he watches all his killings on a big screen. If this was remade today, that would be his wanking room, but he seems to take an entirely non-sexual approach to it. Perhaps Gus Van Sant could add some awkward masturbation to an otherwise shot-by-shot remake of another 1960 classic?
Would you recommend this? I suppose that I would. The gore and such has aged out, as has the mistrust of psychology, which is something that it shares with Psycho. Perhaps it was just a new art (also something similar happened in Boomerang). This was fine, but I would recommend this on its own for the intense insanity of the dancing death. The director of this movie, was more famously known for dance and family movies, and here he manages to combine that with a grimy murder scene.
A young actress wants to get a video reel of herself dancing, and asks our man to help video it after hours. She dances for several minutes, and is then killed. It's a lot of fun (despite the end of that sentence), and brings a real energy to the movie. It's also fucking insane, and it's worth watching just for that.
Final thoughts? I just said I don't want to watch any more English crime movies, and then this rocks up on TV. I can see why this is hailed as a classic. It may have lost some of its power over time, but it's a true one-off, and is genuinely subversive in a way that belies its age. Interesting. I'd always seen it, on lists, and so I'm glad I'm filling in some holes in my knowledge of movie history. Hooray me.
This is the 15th - you can find the other 14 inane ramblings right here.
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