A couple of months after Peeping Tom opened in cinemas, its esteemed British director, Michael Powell, told an interviewer: "I don't think of it as just a horror film at all - I tried to go beyond the ordinary horror film of unexplained monsters, and instead show why one human being should behave in this extraordinary way - it's a story of a human being, first and foremost."

Peeping Tom is incredibly effective, and its complex portrayal of a sadistic serial killer was groundbreaking. Unfortunately, for its director, too groundbreaking; far too effective for the film critics of 1960 to handle.