10 Films About Voyeurism

8. Blue Velvet

Few films can boast a monster quite like Frank Booth. Few films would want to. David Lynch's 1986 neo-noir sees unassuming student Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) stumble upon an underworld revolving around lounge singer Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) and her captor, psychotic kingpin Frank (Dennis Hopper). In a film populated with oddballs and atrocities, it is our introduction to Frank that makes us stand up and take notice. Upon hearing a knock at her door, Dorothy hides Jeffrey inside her closet; from where he watches Frank enter the room and demand Dorothy pour him a drink. Frank then tells her to spread her legs, and, inhaling amyl nitrate through a mask kept in his jacket, screams and wails as he draws his head closer. Jeffrey is, understandably, disturbed by this- yet feels too helpless to intervene. Here is he made into an unwilling spectator; note that he never closes his eyes but instead stands transfixed at the increasingly violent assault only a few feet away. Although Frank leaves unchallenged, Jeffrey spies on him as the film develops. Perhaps Jeffrey's voyeurism stems from both his name and the cracks of light across his face in the closet, indicating a possible influence of the above Hitchcock films?