DVD reviews: Peeping Tom, Salo

By MARGARET N. BATES

Peeping Tom (1960) is all about a sensitive, sad young foreign man (Hardy Kruger) who lives in London. He loves taking 16mm movies and carries his camera everywhere. But all the ladies he films unfortunately are murdered -- as he is filming them! Hardy is so happy to meet a lovely débutante in the flat downstairs that he forgets to report these murders to the police. Instead he gives the débutante downstairs a private screening of all these terrible coincidental murders for her birthday, and unusual movies of his father torturing him with a lizard, before riding off on a scooter to take passport pictures at a news agency. He is so driven to distraction by the attentions of the débutante's drunken mother and a psychiatrist that he takes his own picture -- and dies! This film makes photography look terribly dangerous, and is not recommended for young adults hoping to take it up as a career.

Salo, or 120 Days of Sodium (1976) is all about a holiday camp for teenagers in northern Italy after the war. Because of rationing, there is insufficient clothing and food for the young cast. Compared to other films made around a similar premise, like Friday the Thirteenth and I Know What You Did Last Summer, Salo lacks drama and suspense. Because no hockey-masked murderer stalks them, or because no posse of vampires pick them off,  the cast become so terribly dejected they start eating things out of sheer boredom. Now I know that the obesity crisis is blamed partly on people eating for want of something to do. Once or twice when I was bored, I ate a whole tub of ice cream. I even saw Bear Grylls squeeze out a drink from elephant dung on television, but Salo made this look like a picnic. I'm surprised it hasn't been banned.