Country: UNITED KINGDOM
aka:
Face of Fear
Le Voyeur
When opening a discussion on Michael Powell’s highly divisive British psychological horror film Peeping Tom (1960) it is very easy to get drawn into a reductive debate about the films critical reception in the United Kingdom. For horror fans the film has become something of a cause celebre. The one clear cut occasion when the middle class critical establishment got it wrong and were proven by time to be inadequate to discuss cinema. For those unaware of the films critical reception, suffice it to say it caused a scandal. The film was unanimously panned by middle class and right wing bluster - the same idiots that had become hysterical over imported horror comics and the productions of Hammer. Often the rhetoric and abuse of the reviews were far worse than the actual content of the films. The resulting furore had dire consequences for the films gifted director who found it increasingly difficult afterward to mount a production the UK. Powell would suffer a type of unspoken blacklisting and was forced abroad to make films that became increasingly sporadic during the 1960’s.
