Peeping Tom, Psycho, and the Birth of Modern Horror

The fifties were old America's last stand, in the next decade a cataclysm of events would combine to remake both our society and popular culture. The civil rights movement was an important step in the direction of equality, the Vietnam War ended the optimism and innocence of the Eisenhower era which had thrived despite the constant threat of nuclear war. The early days of rock and roll and the beat generation gave way to the dominance of bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as counterculture became the mainstream. It may be a tad too convenient to tie the end of classic Hollywood and the studio system to the fifties becoming the sixties but there were undoubtedly some bellwether films that signaled a shift in the medium. Most conveniently to the premise of this article, one little corner of the film industry saw its two most influential films both released in the same year, the first of the new decade. Though not made by directors typically associated with horror, both films would have a profound impact on the genre almost immediately that still lasts today.

Michael Powell (Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes) first met Alfred Hitchcock in 1928 when the latter was making Champagne and the former was working as a still photographer for the publicity department. The two maintained a lifelong friendship that eventually coincided in 1960 when both released horror films that had a similarity not just thematically but also visually. Both Powell's Peeping Tom (written by Leo Marks) and Hitchcock's Psycho (Joseph Stefano) revolved around a similar premise: a young man that is a murderer. While that may not seem like a terribly original idea, the similarities go much deeper just between the two men. At first glance, both Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) and Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) are handsome young men, seemingly normal except for a bit of social awkwardness and generally shy, quiet nature. They live and work in places where they'll come into contact with others but keep to themselves despite being personable when talking to others.

Mark appears to be a normal, if shy, young man...

...as does Norman.

This differs greatly from the monsters or grotesque social outcasts of previous horror films and introduces a much more horrifying reality, that manics are hiding in plain sight around us. Under the surface however, everything is far from normal as both men suffer from complexes inflicted upon them by their parents. Mark's father was a scientist that used him as a guinea pig for his research, keeping him under constant surveillance, both audio and visual, and most of all recording his responses to fearful situations. Due to this, Mark suffers from scoptophilla, or the intense desire to watch. Norman's incredibly domineering mother and their unhealthy relationship led to him developing dissociative identity disorder. Both are driven to kill by their disorders, targeting beautiful women as their targets. Norman was taught by his mother that she was only worthy woman and he feels guilt and conflict within himself when he flirts with Marion (Janet Leigh), Mark's relationship with women is equally influenced by his father, in that he is only comfortable when watching them from behind a camera or unseen and is more aroused by fear than he is sex. Norman too, is a voyeur. These movies take a bold step in attempting to explain the compulsions of insane killers, instead of just characterizing them as evil for no reason.

Mark isn't interested in the experienced, casual beauty that flirts with him...

...it is the fearful, scarred girl being photographed for the first time that he is absorbed with.

Mark prefers watching women, unseen...

...Norman does too.

Though their pasts and psyches may come from a similar place, and both are driven to kill Mark and  Norman go about their killings in very different ways. Despite his compulsion, Mark is in control of the situation, quite literally directing his victims before stabbing them. Norman, on the other hand assumes the personality of his mother when he kills and doesn't even realize that he has done it. When the Norman half of his personality finds Marion he thinks it is his mother who committed the act and is motivated to try to cover it up. The mother side in him kills in a fit of jealousy whereas Mark carefully premeditates his murders.

Like a director, Mark carefully plans out his murders...

...while the Norman personality doesn't know what the mother personality does in a jealous rage.

Norman attempts, through his Norman side, to avoid detection but Mark plans to be caught the entire time, killing one girl despite the police being outside. He needs the finale of his documentary and knows he won't get away with what he did forever. The documentary is the completion of his father's work observing him just as Norman continues his mother's work by killing any unworthy women that might come between them. There is also a ritualistic fetish nature of their killing, Norman as he dresses up like his mother and Mark, living his dream of being a director as he arranges his victims into just the right spot. Both men kill with sharp, phallic instruments that demonstrate the linked nature of the erotic and murderous in their disorders. The slasher genre, which can be traced to these two films, takes the elements of violence and sex and links them intrinsically, sometimes to an uncomfortable and gratuitous degree. Neither character is completely successful in their endeavors and both leave behind Lila (Vera Miles) and Helen Stephens (Anna Massey), archetypes of the final survivor seen in most slasher films.

Perhaps most striking in similarity and difference between Peeping Tom and Psycho lies in their visuals and directorial work by Powell and Hitchcock. Both make marked use of point of view particularly as the murders are taking place. The terror on the faces of the victims and the instruments of their demise, both now allowed to be shown more fully under less strict censorship, brought to end decades of "tell don't show" off camera violations.

We see the lead up to killings in Peeping Tom from Mark's point of view, via the camera...

...Psycho takes that a step further by showing us what Norman sees after he stabs his victim...

...as well as giving us the victim's point of view... 

...right before they are killed.

We see murders both from the killer's and victim's POV on multiple occasions, with Psycho's famous shower scene a prime example of changing POV and the quick inter-cutting between the two creating a sensation of terror. Peeping Tom draws the scenes out more, at times just showing the killer's POV and others slowly cutting between the killer and victim, building to a climax as opposed to Psycho's rush of intensity. Both are equally effective, Psycho fashioning the ubiquitous modern jumpscare and Peeping Tom the building of tension, both of which are liberally used in modern horror films. Powell and Hitchcock use their camera to make us voyeurs on equal level with Mark and Norman; in a way all moviegoers are peeping toms, the camera is their eyes and the screen the window in which they watch, unseen and unacknowledged by those that they watch. The first person view is just taking that concept to it's logical conclusion.

The Camera makes the audience voyeurs...

...and Peeping Toms.

Both films create a tremendous amount of atmosphere through cinematography and music, though again in different ways. The creepy shadows of the Bates Motel wouldn't be nearly as effective in color whereas the early Mod setting of London and Mark's photography lab require Peeping Tom to be in color.

Psycho wouldn't look right in color...

...and Peeping Tom wouldn't be the same with its vibrant color cinematography.

Peeping Tom's score is a moody, minimalist piano score composed by Brian Easdale, an analogue version of the synth used so prominently in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) while Bernard Herrmann's famous score for Psycho set a new standard for what a symphonic score could do in not just amplifying intensity but creating it.

Ironically, though they were both released the same year, the fallout from Psycho and Peeping Tom was dramatically different for the directors. The film was a massive hit financially for Hitchcock and though it's cutting edge content received mixed reaction from critics it did nothing to harm the director's career. On the other hand, Peeping Tom was a failure for Powell, helped by the extremely negative reaction of the conservative British critics who long had beef with the director's films. Powell struggled to find work after Peeping Tom and he himself blames the reception of the movie on the ending of his career. Only when it was released in America a few years later did the film find the audience and success it deserved. The influence that these films had on the horror genre is undeniable, which had previously been populated by mummies, vampires, and Gothic drama but would soon be inhabited by Mario Bava's giallo films and the likes of Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, which owe a debt to Peeping Tom and Psycho.