Peacock Review

I don’t usually find a lot of horror movies that are creepy enough for this site, without being overtly scary, gorey, or have a marketing scheme that makes it sound horror. But I was pleasantly surprised by this horror movie that was in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Peacock is not going to appeal to a lot of horror purists, but I found some of the moments to be quite seriously, one of the creepiest characters I’ve seen Cillian Murphy play.

The plot of this film revolves around a private bank clerk in the city of Peacock. John Skillpa is a quite guy and doesn’t really bother anyone, and doesn’t allow anyone into his circle of life.

He has a secret. He’s a woman named Emma too, and he starts to lose track of his identity and people start finding out the truth, and it starts to scare him.

When a train caboose falls off the tracks into his backyard, he loses his mind, and he really starts to showcase some creepy factors. The rest of the film involves him and his split personality “Emma” trying to figure out what is real and what is fake. Meanwhile the city is trying to get a political event near the train, all of this while his former lover is trying to get money to leave town.

The setting is creepy, and the build up is even worse. By the time someone dies in this film, you’re invested emotionally into the characters and aren’t sure where this is going. The movie depends largely on Murphy’s performance and it’s quite good. He legitimately looks crazy at moments, and some parts of the film utilize clever editing to make you think that Emma is not really the same person.

Even though this film smells of “straight to dvd” at times, it has some very creepy editing, and the slow burning build to the final climax resembles the final twists and turns that brought Psycho to the world. The visuals are professionally done, and the color tones strike the mood and balance quite well.

Is Peacock a Scary Film? : No.

While I thought the film was quite creepy, and had elements of horror. I didn’t find myself scared too often, although there are horror elements. I found that the film hinged carefully not to cross over too far from the slow pacing, and that’s a good job. I like how the film feels older, it feels like it was meant for a different era, but I found myself wanting another piece to the horror quotient. I didn’t quite feel that, despite the film’s pull towards horror elements.

I appreciated the film for what it was, a thriller, but thought it was worth mentioning on this site because it had some great classic horror ideologies, specifically the way the camera moves in towards the end of the film pushing this sort of “Alfred Hitchcock” type of sequencing.

I don’t recommend Peacock to everyone, as it doesn’t quite deliver in the end. However, I did find the visuals good, so you should definitely check it out.