Looking back on watching Peeping Tom I realize that the cinematography kept the audience in great suspense throughout the entire movie, and through cinematography the movie revealed the great secret in the end. At the beginning of the movie we as the audience are looking through the eyes of Mark Lewis, the murderer. The camera does not leave the point-of-view angle through the entire scene. This view gives us only the perspective of the killer and we are watching the whole scene through the lens of his camera, in which he is filming the whole encounter. By using this view we only get limited knowledge of what is actually taking place in this scene. We have no idea what he is killing her with, nor do we know what she is so afraid of when she is looking at Mark. The woman seems to be paralyzed with fear and isn’t moving a muscle. We have limited knowledge of what she is actually seeing and are confused ourselves as to why she is not running or trying to fight.

Throughout the movie we then encounter more and more murders, we  still get a  limited view on the scene. We still don’t exactly know what the women are so afraid of when they are looking at Mark. Are they afraid of the weapon, are the afraid because he is filming or are they just all paralyzed by the fright of impending death.

Not until the last scene when the camera point of view changes do we get the full effect of what is happening during the murders. In the last scene Mark is explaining to Helen why he is killing women, what his motive is in his actions and how he murdered them. The camera angle then shifts the point of view to Helen’s eyes. As the audience we are no longer looking through the lens of his camera at the murder but through the victim’s eyes. What we see is a mirror. There is a mirror connected to his camera so the victims can watch themselves dying. This was Mark’s way of filming a new sort of fear.

The choice of the director to change the camera angle like this takes the film in a full circle. We start the story off on one end of the camera watching from one point of view and then at the end we are taken 180 degrees and watching the murder from the other end. What we learn in this last scene reveals to us exactly what that woman in the first scene was seeing and why she was so paralyzed with fear. She was so scared because she was seeing herself; her scared face, knowing that her death was soon to follow and she was going to see the whole thing. The cinematography allowed for the beginning and end to be in connection and it revealed the final mystery to why he was killing the woman, as well as how he was getting to a deeper sense of fear. It takes the movie from just a simple horror film with a serial killer, to a psychological film that leaves you uncomfortable.

Jessica Engle