IMDb RATING
5.8/10
1.8K
YOUR RATING
A wealthy author's second wife begins to suspect that her 12-year-old stepson may have murdered his mother, who mysteriously died in a bathtub accident.A wealthy author's second wife begins to suspect that her 12-year-old stepson may have murdered his mother, who mysteriously died in a bathtub accident.A wealthy author's second wife begins to suspect that her 12-year-old stepson may have murdered his mother, who mysteriously died in a bathtub accident.
Conchita Montes
- Sophie
- (as Conchita Montez)
Colette Jack
- Sarah
- (as Collette Jack)
Ricardo Palacios
- Party Guest
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe film received minor cuts for its initial UK cinema release. However in 1978 the introduction of the Protection of Children Act caused the BBFC to withdraw the film where it received extensive cuts to all scenes where Elise strips in front of Marcus, shots of Marcus caressing Elise's breasts, and the complete removal of the bed scene between Elise and Marcus.
- GoofsElyse says the peephole in the attic was covered with gauze, but when she looked through it , it was clear, no covering.
- Alternate versionsThere are some very minor differences between the VHS and Blu-ray versions of the film. For example, when Elise strips in front of Marcus, there are significant last-minute jump-cuts in the Blu-ray version, while the VHS print runs normally. Also in the dream sequence when Elise strips and attempts to have sex with Marcus is presented differently in the copies. In the VHS print, the whole scene is in one take, ending with a smiling Paul watching over them. The Blu-ray version divides the whole scene into two parts, placing other small shots from the film in between. Also, the VHS uses the original title of the film "Night Child" instead of "What the Peeper Saw" in the Blu-ray. Both version have the same runtime of 95 minutes, however.
Featured review
This is just what the world needed--the star of "Oliver" as a pubescent sex pervert and psychopath. A young woman (Swedish sex symbol Britt Ekland)marries an older man soon after his first wife dies in a mysterious bathtub accident. All is fine until his creepy 12-year-old son (played by Mark "Oliver" Lester) returns home early from school. The cold, precocious youngster tortures and kills animals, tells malicious lies to turn her husband against her, spies on them in bed(this was alternately marketed under the more lurid title "What the Peeper Saw"), and for the piece de resistance forces her to strip while he reveals the truth about what happened to his mother. This movie is not entirely uninteresting, but it is let down by the acting. Britt Ekland was great dancing naked in "The Wicker Man" and tolerable as a bikini-clad Bond girl in "The Man with the Golden Gun", but she is simply not a good enough actress to play a dramatic lead. As for Lester there is probably a reason he never made the leap from child to adult star--he was pretty much a British MacCauley Culkin (who years later would star in a very similar "Bad Seed"-type movie called "The Good Son"). Lester is not very scary and he's certainly not very convincing as an erudite child genius (who names his dogs "Trotsky" and "Hanibal").
Modern audiences will probably be surprised by the sexual intrigue between Ekland and Lester. I don't know if that scene where she strips for him was controversial at the time, but I know a similar scene in Lucio Fulci's "Don't Torture a Duckling" where Barbara Bouchet displays herself to a young boy certainly was.
The ending is surreal, bizarre, and really doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's vastly preferable to the very predictable ending of the "The Good Son" or the ridiculous deus ex machina ending of the original "The Bad Seed". This film may not be as creepy and well-acted as the "The Bad Seed", but it's not as stagey and it was filmed in one of the most beautiful places in the world, the north of Spain. However, if you want good acting, a truly creepy storyline, AND beautiful cinematography, the best of these bad seed/child psycho movies is "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" with Kris Kristoferson.
Modern audiences will probably be surprised by the sexual intrigue between Ekland and Lester. I don't know if that scene where she strips for him was controversial at the time, but I know a similar scene in Lucio Fulci's "Don't Torture a Duckling" where Barbara Bouchet displays herself to a young boy certainly was.
The ending is surreal, bizarre, and really doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's vastly preferable to the very predictable ending of the "The Good Son" or the ridiculous deus ex machina ending of the original "The Bad Seed". This film may not be as creepy and well-acted as the "The Bad Seed", but it's not as stagey and it was filmed in one of the most beautiful places in the world, the north of Spain. However, if you want good acting, a truly creepy storyline, AND beautiful cinematography, the best of these bad seed/child psycho movies is "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" with Kris Kristoferson.
Details
- Runtime1 hour 29 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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