A Próxima Vítima

Twelve year old Marcus is a pure bad seed.The boy has the history of animal abuse,sexual perversion and possibly murder.His mother died mysteriously during so-called tragic accident.Marcus is a manipulative and cruel boy.His rich father Paul marries Elise played by Britt Ekland.Marcus becomes obsessed with her and tragic occurrences follow."Night Child" aka "What the Peeper Saw" is an unsettling psychological thriller with few controversial set-pieces including the scenes where Elise strips in front of Marcus,shots of Marcus caressing Elise's breasts and finally short bed scene between Elise and Marcus.The acting is decent and Britt Ekland is truly one of the most beautiful women ever seen on screen.Be sure to track down an uncut version!

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.

I'd always been intrigued by this controversial film, given its cast and subject matter; being an international production between Spain, Great British and Italy, it was released under various titles – DIABOLICA MALICIA in Spain, LA TUA PRESENZA NUDA in Italy and several more in English-speaking countries, but perhaps most popularly as the obscure NIGHT HAIR CHILD (which is how I knew it) and the lurid WHAT THE PEEPER SAW; the print I watched, then, omitted the middle word from the former and left it at that!

Anyway, the film is notorious for turning Mark Lester, the cute protagonist from the musical OLIVER! (1968), into a true nightmare of a child: liar, sadist, voyeur, lecher, murderer! As I said earlier, he's surrounded by other notables: Britt Ekland (at the height of her beauty) is his bewildered stepmom; Hardy Kruger plays the boy's clueless and over-protective father; and, also appearing in bit parts, are Harry Andrews as the headmaster of Lester's school (who's forced to expel him due to gross misconduct) and Lilli Palmer as a psychiatrist (intending to analyze the boy, she ends up checking in Ekland for treatment!).

The film is undeniably sleazy, as we get to see Ekland stripping in front of Lester (at his behest, but to which she acquiesces in order to get at the truth of his mother's mysterious demise!) and even getting into bed with him stark naked (though this is presented as a mere hallucination on her part, witnessed by a cackling Kruger!); however, it's lifted out of the exploitation rut by all-round credible performances and a typically nice score by Stelvio Cipriani. The scene, then, in which Lester imagines his mother's corpse (whom he has callously killed in the film's very opening scene) in the pool is effectively macabre; the finale, too, is worth waiting for: the boy almost coerces Ekland (no sooner has she been released from the asylum) into murdering Kruger and becoming his lover since he tells her she's closer to his own age (Lester being 12 and Ekland 22, while Kruger's 42!); she gives him the impression of agreeing with this latest scheme of his but, realizing the kid will never change, Ekland immediately provides herself with the opportunity to get rid of Lester once and for all…

Incidentally, co-director Bianchi would go on to make an even more explicit 'monster child' effort on his home turf with MALABIMBA – THE MALICIOUS WHORE (1979); as for Britisher Kelly, his only other film was the passable Tigon production THE BEAST IN THE CELLAR (1970). By the way, I have two more of Lester's vintage films to check out – MELODY (1971) and another Italian-made "Grindhouse" flick, REDNECK (1973); while I'm at it, I should try to get my hands on EYEWITNESS (1970), the well-regarded Hitchcockian thriller he starred in that was entirely filmed in Malta.

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.

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.