In their life, people deal with obsessions in many different ways. Most of them can control such obsessions, but oftentimes their obsessions are not as painful to others, so even though they do not cope with them, they are agreeable. But there are some very few that cannot hold themselves, and in this category, we can include the peeping Toms. This obsession is creepy and intrusive, and only by watching ‘Tom’, without ever having had any encounter with a peeping Tom, we felt violated in a disturbing way.

​

This short movie is so visceral and well produced it literally made our skin crumble whilst watching it. The whole narrated story is so well presented that the fear becomes real. We knew about this subject but never had the chance to go deeper into researching it or even see a movie about this phenomenon. Joshua Nicholas Goodman and Justin William Houghton teamed up and put together a movie that can shock any viewer constantly. The creepiest thing about ‘Tom’ is that during the whole short film we don’t see the face of the peeper, but only his body doing despicable things. The women have no idea they are watched, doing their daily routines and not knowing that sooner or later they will be the soul appetizers of a deranged man.

​

The ending of this short reminded us of a great movie where craziness is the main theme – ‘Salo, or the 120 days of Sodom’, by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Both movies deal with craziness, and both of them have their ending made in a special way. Just as in Pasolini’s movie, ‘Tom’ ends with the peeper going to deal with his job whilst classical music plays in the background. In Passolini’s case there is Wagner, here it is something similar.

 

‘Tom’ is the kind of experimental film that intensely messes with your mind from the first until the last shot.

​

Written by Vlad A. G