Thursday, May 14, 2009

What The Peeper Saw (1972) aka Night Hair Child aka Child Of The Night aka Der Zeuge Hinter Der Wand aka Diabolisch aka Night Child aka Tua Presenza..

4 / 5

Tagline: What he saw is what he did.
Directed by: James Kelley, Andrea Bianchi
Written by: Andrea Bianchi, Erich Krohnke
Actors include: Mark Lester, Britt Ekland, Hardy Kruger
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Length: 95 minutes (or 70 minutes as mine was)
Banned: Nope
Country: Spain/UK/Italy/USA/West Germany

Review:
First of all, DO NOT BUY THE DVD...seriously the print is horrible, and it's missing at least 25 minutes of the movie, and it will not even make sense. I've written a new review after getting to watch the uncut version from a vhs tape called "Night Child" because it really changes the movie a ton. I'll include my DVD review after the actual one so you can see the descreptancies:VHS

Review:
4 / 5

This is one creepy sexual film, see the edited version cut out all the nudity but the thing is many of the major plot points happen while people are naked or there is nudity in the background. If you want to see Britt naked, this is your chance, she is naked a fair bit here. That wasn't a draw for me but watching Mark Lester (who played "Oliver!" in the musical) as a young creepy prodigy who has a weird sexual appetite for spying and his stepmother. We learn that the boy's mother died under suspicious circumstances, but as the stepmom tries to learn the truth she is being toyed with by the boy. He for example has his Stepmother strip for him in order for her to get the information about the death of his Mom. Anyhow of course the boy twists it around and it gets weirder and weirder still...the boy even kills a dog! It's really something to see and my only complaint is that it's a little slow moving, at the same time it's many surprises and great acting make this one most definitely worthwhile. Oh also interesting is the fact that when you can actually see the movie clearly you can tell that we do not in fact see Mark naked, in the crappy print version it looks like you do.

DVD Review:
3 / 5

I really really really wanted to see this movie, I was very excited when I secured a copy on amazon (even if it was expensive). I was a lot less excited when I learned that the dvd's claims to have two different versions of the film (the uncut and the cut) were lies and that the picture quality is barely watchable. The dvd is a severely chopped version and I'm not sure I can even claim that I've really seen the movie...and there are no other options out there so I can't even get another version of this film! Why do I care? Well from what I was able to assemble from what was left of the plot it was actually a really cool and interesting thriller. The story is about a brilliant and innocent seeming young lad who's Daddy has hooked it up with the seductive Britt Ekland. See there are some rather strange flirtations between Britt and the young boy (who by the way is Mark Lester of the musical "Oliver" fame...seriously) but from what I've read they actually hook up and do things in the movie. Seriously from what I gather here is what is cut out of this edition of the film that we don't get to see: Mark & Britt hook up, I think they have sex, they show nudity, they show Mark killing his birth mother, and yes we get to see or know about none of that. Basically we meet the kid, watch him act strangely around Britt, then a bunch of cuts, then we see them acting really strange towards each other like something happened (which apparently it did) and then a pretty darned awesome ending happens which I should reveal. All in all we only get 70 minutes of a 95 minute movie. I'm just really depressed because I think this movie would be super awesome if it were uncut and in a clear picture and stuff, it's actually quite creepy and effective. I'm just super mad at the dvd and I highly recommend that no matter what you don't buy it, I nearly returned it and I've never considered doing that before...ever. So if anyone has this uncut and they want to share with me I'll be a happy lass, but in the meantime I'll just have to keep my eyes out.

Availability:  On DVD though I highly suggest not buying it as the cover lies about the versions available, only a fuzzy hacked to pieces edit exists in that version

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