Director Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (May 14) Headlines The Critrion Collection's May Release Calendar With A 4K Ultra HD Release • Anatomy Of A Fall (May 28) Also On Its Way

The Criterion Collection announced its May slate of new film restorations this past week and there are some interesting films heading home during the month.

Top among these (and this is all subjective) is a new 4K digital restoration of director Michael Powell’s 1960 (1961 domestic) serial killer horror tale, Peeping Tom.

It will be available on May 14 as a new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack release (a Blu-ray only edition will also be available on that date).

If the film were titled something along the lines of The London Blood Stalker, or perhaps, The Terror of the Photo Killer … maybe even, Smile, You’re Dead … anything but Peeping Tom, the film would have seamlessly followed director Arthur Crabtree’s Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) and Filmmaker Sidney Hayes’ Circus of Horrors (1960) to these shores and into wide theatrical distribution.   

However, AIP (American International Pictures) took a pass on Peeping Tom, perhaps not fully appreciating how good Powell’s film was and how the relatively unknown (certainly of little marquee value) Karl Bohm’s chilling performance as Mark Lewis — the handsome young man who likes to photograph beautiful women while killing them — would, over time, be considered a classic horror entry.

It did get a minor indie release domestically, but was soon forgotten.   Only as time passed was the significance of Peeping Tom as a genre entry fully realized.

Bonus features include two commentary options.  The first is with film scholar Laura Mulvey (“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”), while the second commentary option features film scholar Ian Christie (“A Matter of Life and Death”), two documentaries related to the film and video session with editor Thelma Schoonmaker.

In other release news for the month of May, the Criterion Collection has captured the domestic Blu-ray and DVD release rights for director Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall.   The street date is May 28.

Nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Triet, plus a Best Actress nomination for Sandra Huller’s performance, Anatomy of a Fall arrives with an ARR of 228 days and a domestic box office gross of $4.6 million.

Bonus features include deleted and alternate scenes (with optional commentary), audition footage and a video session with Triet.