"What the Peeper Saw" is much more of a psychological drama than a horror film, or even a thriller. It focuses heavily on the antagonistic relationship between Elise (Britt Ekland), the new wife of an older man, successful author Paul (Hardy Kruger), and her stepson Marcus (Mark Lester of "Oliver!" fame). They initially seem to get along all right, but Elise becomes increasingly frustrated by this enigmatic, aloof kid, who acts much older than his actual age. She comes to suspect that he had murdered his biological mother Sarah (Colette Giacobine), and now has similar designs on her.As directed by James Kelley ("The Beast in the Cellar"), you can't ever expect a lot of tension in this film. That doesn't seem to be its primary concern. It DOES have a sexual charge about it, however. Hell, the uncut version opens with a scene of nudity. The evolving relationship between our heroine and bratty antagonist does play up this quality. (Still, it must be noted that you don't ever see the kid indulge in the act of peeping on screen.) The single most memorable sequence involves the two main characters exchanging clothes for information, as Elise strips in front of Marcus in order to get some truths out of him.And this kid is one truly cagey character. One thing you can expect is that the scenario turns into one of "he said, she said", and Elise is understandably flustered that she can get almost nobody to believe her about this bad seed.Ekland is no great shakes as a dramatic actress, but she just looks so damn fine that some viewers probably won't mind very much. (She DOES give the proceedings an earnest effort.) Kruger is fine as the dad, but the film belongs to young Lester, who's quite amusing throughout. Lilli Palmer and Harry Andrews are excellent in special guest appearances as a psychiatrist and school headmaster.The out of nowhere violent ending is downright hilarious, even if it's probably not intended to be that way.The Italian version is credited to Andrea Bianchi ("Strip Nude for Your Killer", "Burial Ground").Six out of 10.

A wealthy author's second wife (Britt Ekland) begins to suspect her 12-year old stepson (Mark Lester) may have murdered his mother whom mysteriously died in a bathtub accident. Hardy Krüger ("Sundays and Cybele") plays the father.The film was directed by James Kelley ("The Beast in the Cellar"). The Italian version of the film credits the prolific Andrea Bianchi as writer and director, under the pseudonym Andrew White. The cast is strong, with child star Mark Lester ("Oliver!") and Bond girl Britt Ekland ("The Wicker Man") appropriately cast.As of 2014, the cut version is available on CrypticTV (and probably YouTube), with the uncut now out on Blu-ray from VCI. Although, the latter is very, very pricey. Depending on how you see it, of course, the sound and picture will vary in quality. Overall, though, well worth seeking out for fans of 1970s Italian horror / suspense movies.

Night Hair Child (a.k.a What The Peeper Saw) is a pretty depraved thriller that largely embarrasses its well-known cast. It is quite uncomfortable to watch a 12-year old lad engaging in a game of sexual cat-and-mouse with a 22-year old woman, but the film might have just about got away with it if a subtler approach had been adopted. When we have such scenes as the woman performing a strip to tease information out of the boy, or climbing into bed with him whilst naked in a bizarre dream sequence, the film goes beyond the boundaries of good taste. Things that could have been effective if implied suddenly become explicit… and the potential for a dark psychological thriller is replaced by an emphasis on exploitation and sleaze.After the death of his mother in a bath accident, Marcus (Mark Lester) goes away to boarding school while his father Paul (Hardy Kruger) buys a villa in a remote region of Spain to escape the memory of his loss. A couple of years later, 41-year old Paul has remarried to a 22-year old woman named Elise (Britt Ekland). Marcus, now 12, arrives at the villa unexpectedly while his father is away, claiming that his school has been shut down due to a chicken pox outbreak. It is the first time Elise and the boy have met. It soon strikes her that young Marcus is quite a disturbed boy – and her fears grow when she learns that he has actually been expelled from school after torturing then killing a cat. Paul cannot seem to accept that there is anything wrong with his son, but Elise is sure of it. Things get even creepier when young Marcus starts to make sexual advances towards her and, in his ultimate mind game, confesses to her that he actually murdered his real mother two years earlier. Elise is trapped in a vortex of lies, mind games and sexual threat, and her sanity is pushed to the brink… It would take some mighty fine performances to make these characters work and none of the three leads manage it. Kruger doesn't react believably to anything that happens; Ekland can't shrug her sex symbol image to bring conviction to the role; and Lester is mostly wooden when he should in fact be chilling us to the bone. It is left to a pair of guest stars – Harry Andrews as the school headmaster and Lilli Palmer as a callous psychologist – to deliver the film's only memorable performances, but their roles are so peripheral to the main story that they can't rescue the film. The plot is rather intriguing – there's always something morbidly fascinating about child villains in the movies – but the handling fails to do it justice. On the whole, Night Hair Child is a let-down, a film that has the potential to be chilling but wastes it, instead emerging as a sleazy melodrama with too much focus on sensationalism at the expense of actual psychological thrills.

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.