10 Horror Movies That Went Too Far

Released in 1960 and technically the first iteration of the slasher movie - coming even before the behemoth genre spark of Psycho later in the same year - Peeping Tom isn't a film that will have you reaching for a blanket to hide behind in comparison to modern horror movies. In fact, it's tight narrative and impressive construction are more compelling reason to watch than not, but the world wasn't ready for this type of movie without someone like Hitchcock able to stand and weather the criticism.

Director Michael Powell was told that we went too far by the world, who shunned Peeping Tom and savaged his filmmaking career to the point where his reputation was in ruined, and he struggled making movies ever since. Critics were repelled by Peeping Tom's voyeuristic nature, in which a serial killer murders women whilst recording their dying emotions on his camera. So much were they disgusted by its content that it was hyperbolically described as so in The Tribune:

'The only really satisfactory way to dispose of Peeping Tom would be to shovel it up and flush it swiftly down the nearest sewer. Even then the stench would remain.'

According to the world at the time, he went way over the line.