La tua presenza nuda!

Its a well directed movie and needless to say it must have been a tight rope-walking to handle the taboo subject which must been akin to playing with fireball given the fact that movie debuted on screens way back in 1972. The movie seems more of psychological thriller as it involves quite a bit of mind-games.

Mark Lester as Marcus does a wonderful job. His character seems more like Damien from The Omen and gets to mouth intelligent lines. He looked on higher side for being portrayed aged twelve.

Britt Ekland gets the meaty bit of the role. Portrays the dilemma of the character quite well. Though the character of Elise starts off as a compassionate mother but as the movie progresses it evolves to be victim of Marcus and then leading to inquisitive wife attempting to unearth the truth.

Hardy Kruger seemed to have underplayed the of role of Paul as torn between the two ends. Otherwise his character had a variety of dimensions to it and certainly could have elevated the grey shades of it.

Narrative begins to build up as the movie progresses. Interesting parts are moves Marcus and Elise to play on the chess board attempting to out-beat each other. The part where Elise begins to get clues about the death is interestingly directed (the jigsaw picture), though might seem primitive my todays standards. The vivid imaginations of Elise comes across quite okay.

And yes, the end was well justified so don't miss the last 60-seconds of the movie.

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.

Night Hair Child has all the elements to be a disturbing and dark thriller; especially considering the sick and twisted plot line. However, despite a few interesting ideas; this film doesn't capitalise on them, and unfortunately it's only an average film that is nowhere near as disturbing as it could have been. The plot basically focuses on the idea of a 'problem child' causing problems between his parent and a new significant other. The problem child idea has been done many times throughout cinema; but a less common variant is a film like this, where sleaze take centre stage. However, such is the disappointment of Night Hair Child; not even the sleaze is all that prominent. The plot focuses on Elise; a beautiful young woman who has married older man Paul. Paul's wife apparently died in a strange bathtub incident and this has had a damning effect on her son Marcus, who unluckily for Elise, has returned home from school early and has took it upon himself to wreck their marriage by way of getting in between them with lies and bad behaviour.

The main problem with this film is definitely the acting. A plot like this needs strong performances from the leads and it just doesn't get them. Britt Ekland has been good in other films where a great performance is not needed; but she just doesn't have the talent for this role and despite looking nice, she doesn't deliver what is needed. Her opposite number is Mark Lester. I can completely understand the attraction of having the star of Oliver in a role as a twisted sex pervert; but unfortunately, he's a terrible actor that never conveys any emotion at all and simply does not convince in his role. He's also very irritating and every scene he features in is a struggle to get through. The plot is nowhere near as interesting as it could have been either; the exchanges between the central characters lack imagination, and only the scene where Britt Ekland strips for Mark Lester is really memorable; and it's not as memorable as a similar scene in Lucio Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling starring Barbara Bouchet. Overall, it's a shame but I wouldn't really say that this film is even worth a look.

The basic plot of "What the Peeper Saw" is very simple and has been done several times before. The story revolves around a widower whose much younger and ravishingly beautiful new wife discovers that her 12-year-old stepson is a troubled and deeply disturbed kid. While her husband (a not-so-successful writer) is often away on business, Elise finds out that Mark has been expelled from school for peeping at young couples and torturing/killing defenseless little animals, and at home he cheerfully continues with lying, stealing, peeping, and manipulating. She even gathers evidence that his mother's death wasn't so accidental as it looked.

A typically formulaic "bad seed" thriller, in other words, and thus the movie needed something extra and much spicier to stand out in the crowd of early 70s exploitation shockers. Luckily, the British crew collaborated with several notorious Italians - and specifically Andrea Bianchi ("Cry of a Prostitute", "Burial Ground") - who knew a thing or two about controversy. "What the Peeper Saw" became infamous for its sequences in which the stunning Britt Ekland (29 at the time) strips nude in front of child actor Mark Lester (14 years of age), passionately kisses him, and crawls into bed naked next to him. Without a doubt the ultimate wet dream of every horny male teenager (I, for one, wouldn't have minded taking Lester's place) but the UK's censorship committee was appalled - duh - and commanded to withdraw the film from circulation. The film became available again in a heavily cut version of barely 72 minutes, without all the supposedly perverse and provocative underage sex footage. Censorship people are no fun at all!

Controversial or not, "What the Peeper Saw" (aka "Night Child") isn't such a great film. Most of the time, you'll just be frustrated and yelling at the screen for Britt Ekland to get away from her worthless husband and his creepy freak of a kid. The build-up is also very standard, with the doofus husband not believing poor Elise and defending his psycho son because he went through a traumatizing experience. Yeah, yeah. Fortunately, the last 15 minutes are terrific with Ekland's character going completely cuckoo, and the script cleverly hinting that she may have been all along. And thanks to the abrupt and unforeseeable shock-ending, it comes fully recommended after all.

Seeing that this flick was about a pervert kid I almost instinctively picked it up. Even though I was intrigued about the story-line, the expectations of this flick was pretty low. I was pretty much just hoping for a couple scenes of nudity, ya know, some bosoms. Not only did I get some bosoms, I also was treated with a decent lil flick.

The story's main focus is on a lady named Elease who's now the wife of a very wealthy man named Paul. Somewhat recently Paul's previous wife, Sara, accidentally died in a bathtub mishap. Paul and Sara had one child together, and that is Marcus, the original problem child. ;) Marcus, Paul and Elease are trying to begin a new life together, but not all is going so smoothly and things begin heading down the wrong path.

The Night Child aka What the Peeper Saw was definitely a neat little flick, that surprised me on a few accounts. With only three main characters really, and what seems to be moderate acting abilities in all, the film still managed to keep the viewer (me) interested in what the next scene would bring. Elease and Marcus lead the show. With Elease's beautiful face and ability to keep the viewer (me) waiting for more nudity, she did a fine job with her respective role. But the kid who played Marcus did a very good job as the weirdo, neurotic lead. His mature, intellectual approach really was well-done and pretty damn entertaining. Even though he felt robotic at times, it seemed to add to his weirdass vibe.

With a story that involves a bizarre little kid, and where you're second guessing his motives and his behavior, and a lead actress who is gorgeous, you've got the makings of a very good film. The pacing does have it's problems and some scenes do go on for a tad too long, but overall The Night Child was a nice surprise.