Video Voyeur: The Susan Wilson Story

This Lifetime made for television film tells an interesting but slightly campy look at voyeurism.

Susan Wilson (Angie Harmon) moves back to her Louisiana hometown with her family. They are given close attention by neighbour Steve Glover (Jamey Sheridan) who comes across as a little too overeager and creepy.

Susan becomes concerned when he seems to be privy to private conversations with her husband, Gary (Dale Midkiff) and sneaks into the his house to discover videotapes of herself in the shower and in the bedroom.

It seems Steve has secretly installed surveillance cameras in their house and has been taping them. To her horror she finds out that the police can do little about this as this type of voyeurism was not a crime. Worse the local church group are more forgiving of Steve and critical of Susan even when it emerges that other people in the town have also been secretly videotaped by Steve.

Susan campaigns to make this type offence a crime and takes the matter to court.

The film is earnest for Lifetime film but does come across as insipid. The neighbour is just too creepy from the word go, everything is black and white when their should had been more shade in characterisation. Harmon does well in the role who at first is shunned by many in the community for bringing the allegations against Steve. However there are flaws in the film. We are told that there was no audio in the tapes, so how did Steve know what Susan was talking about in her house?

this movie talks about video voyeurs. you can find them about anywhere nowadays. the internet, tv, you name it. unfortunately, they're very common in our hightech world. the people that commit this hideous crime are one step above the law. technically (before susan wilson) there wasn't a law. what he was doing wasn't illegal. the man was a sick little you know what that had the whole town backing him up. people, whatever the "reason" there is no excuse for that kind of behavior or action. it just disgusts me how low people have gotten these days. it must of been awful for susan wilson because this man was a trusted neighbor! how would you react if someone you trusted did this to you? anyways, the acting was ok. angie haromon did well in her role as well as jamey sherridan and the whole cast. i have a recomendation for tegan moss, get rid of that little southern belle in distress accent because its really annoying. lol! check out the movie. it airs on lifetime a lot. well done. 9 stars out of 10.

This is a TV movie based on a true story. Angie Harmon and Dale Midkiff star as parents of two children who move into a new neighborhood and find that one of the neighbors is on the strange side. At first, he's a little annoying. Then he becomes really annoying. Then he becomes inappropriate, like when he lets himself into their house when his power allegedly goes out. At no time does anyone tell him to get lost or that he's crossed a few boundaries.

After that, he starts dropping hints that make him seem like he's either a mind-reader or has some inside knowledge of their home. That's when they find out that he's run a wire into their house and is videotaping them.

I think I saw this woman on Oprah, and the story is indeed shocking. It's because of this family's experience that there are now laws against this type of thing -- originally, there were none, if you can believe it.

This was an okay movie, very average, with Sheridan being friendly but slimy underneath. Angie Harmon is an attractive and sympathetic as the mother. There's just nothing really special about any of it.

In this fact-based film, Susan and Gary Wilson and their two children Emily and Orin move into a new house in Monroe, La., across the street from the very helpful Steve Glover, a deacon in the church. Steve, who married his teenage sweetheart Nancy and knew Susan when they all lived in Mississippi, offers to help them in any way he can. He offers them the use of his pool and hot tub, even when no one is home.

The Wilsons get involved in church and community activities. Like so many girls her age, Emily hates getting used to a new place and says she has no friends. Orin also has some trouble adjusting, though he does become friends with the Glovers' sons.

Steve is just a little too helpful to the Wilsons, though he did take care of their house before they bought it. One reason he spends so much time with the Wilsons may be the fact his wife has a career (this may be why her house is always a mess). Susan, on the other hand, stays home. She runs with her friends and plays classical piano, and she is interested in improving her musical skills.

From the film's title, you know someone will be watching something they shouldn't. While Susan is taking a shower, getting in bed, and even making love, we do see blue and white images on a TV screen that look very much like what we are seeing.

At first I thought this would be just an ordinary TV-movie, no different from a hundred others like it. But as the movie progressed, Angie Harmon effectively showed us a range of different emotions. Her character had to go from wanting to hide from the world to solving her problem regardless of the embarrassment it might cause. Plus she was beautiful--she looked just like Sandra Bullock.

Jamey Sheridan also did a good job. From the very start, he seemed nice in the manner of a used-car salesman, though I won't say whether this makes his character guilty of anything. You'll just have to watch.

This movie raised a number of questions about privacy and Christian faith. What do you forgive, and how should you handle it when someone strays? And how much of our lives are we entitled to keep to ourselves?

I found this quite entertaining.

While I agree what the voyeur did was disgusting and a violation, do you think that everyone that has ever peeped on a woman is sick?. Obviously, setting up cameras in someone's own home is an extreme violation but if anyone who has ever peeped (without using video equipment) was convicted, many or even most guys would be in jail. Especially when guys are young, they're curious but they normally grow out of it and talking to your teenage sons about such things, is a good way of assuring they don't do it or continue to do it and stop it developing into situations as we see in this tele-movie. Reacting in a way in which your shocked it goes on or never discussing it, leads to a growing problem or even a culture of acceptance, making it a worse problem. Did you hear about the NFL peeping lawsuit? MOST NFL players in the entire league knew about the peepholes and many joined in whilst the rest said nothing and considered it a perk of playing at that particular place as it was the visiting player's locker room that was adjoined to the cheerleader's locker room. I blame this kind of behaviour on lack of talk about the subject, especially at an adolescent age where young boys are most likely to do it. They then grow up thinking it's ok to look, because, afterall, they're only seeing what the other cheerleaders see all the time, so it couldn't be so bad, right? That's the mentality, which although wrong and should be punishable, is not what I'd consider sick. Being attracted to the bodies of the opposite sex is totally au-naturale but it definitely can become a sickness if it gets to the point of what occured in this tele-movie. Communication and education is the real preventative measure.