At first, I didn’t really know how to feel about this film. The story of a man killing his mother, and playing psychological mind games is something that makes me a little uneasy when watching it. I am not one to watch horror movies but Peeping Tom was an exception. Although there was limited violence or brutal scenes that you generally see in horror movies, Peeping Tom played with the audiences emotions by messing with their brain. You never knew what was going to happen in the next scene. The film has more of an impact, to me at least, than one that solely contains brutal and violent murders.

Mark begins to kill from the beginning of the film when he murders a prostitute in a hotel room, capturing the whole thing on camera. Mark’s life was greatly effected by his father when he would film the look of terror and fear on Mark’s face when he placed a lizard on him. When the girl walks into the studio and she has a broken face, Mark sees the beauty that is in her and doesn’t mind taking her picture. He enjoys seeing pain and fear in someone’s eyes when they are with him. He captures these moments with his camera that he allows has in his hands. The suspense throughout the movie about what Mark is going to do next is off the charts. When he meets Helen, she is super casual about getting cozy with a psychotic killer! Why do you not run Helen?

Even after Helen views the movies that Mark has made, she still sticks by his side and is not deterred from the actions of Mark. She is enamored by a psychotic killer that could potentially kill her. This love affair adds to the suspense of the movie because we become fearful of what Mark may do to Helen. At the end of the movie, we see Mark impale himself with the knife that is attached to his camera and this rounds off the production that he was trying to produce. The ultimate look of fear is the one that comes when you go to kill yourself. Helen weeps over Mark’s impaled body even though she knew that he was a terrible person that murdered many people, including his own mother.

This film is one that I would watch again because I feel that there are elements that you do not pick up on during the first viewing of the film. I enjoyed this film to a certain extent because it held a little bit of comedic value in how blind Helen was to what Mark was doing with the video camera and just how messed up he actually was. The suspense was what progressed the whole movie because you were constantly wondering what would happen next to Helen and Mark. Mark was always a nice guy to Helen and I believe that he was in love with her and was not simply using her for her reactions. Was Helen in love with Mark or  scared of what might happen if she decided to ignore Mark and go about her life?