Butterfly Kisses

The legend states that Peeping Tom can be summoned by staring down the Ilchester Tunnel at midnight for a full hour without blinking. The rules imply that the act of not blinking mimics the fixed stare of the entity itself, creating a spiritual connection that allows him to manifest. Once summoned, he closes in with each blink, the more you blink, the closer he gets. This creates a catch-22 where victims must fight the natural urge to blink while the entity approaches.

The documentary setup in 2004 establishes these rules early, making Sophia's later struggle to not blink during her dream ritual even more significant.

Gavin enters the tunnel to reenact the summoning ritual on camera while his crew waits outside. They hear a frightening noise that sounds like him running through the tunnel. When they reach the spot, Gavin has vanished completely, taking the camera with him. Nine days later, his corpse is discovered in a hotel bathtub. The film never explicitly shows what happens inside the tunnel, leaving his fate ambiguous.

Earlier footage shows Feldman's deterioration and murder, suggesting a similar fate awaits those who complete the ritual.

Gavin's wife leaves him after discovering he drained their son's college savings to fund the Peeping Tom investigation and film project. The financial betrayal, combined with his growing obsession that takes him away from his family, becomes the final straw. His obsession has already created distance between them, and the revelation about the drained savings proves he prioritize the project over their future.

The tension is established early when Gavin chooses to edit the tapes instead of attending to family matters.

The butterfly kiss is the method Peeping Tom uses to kill his victims. According to the legend, after approaching a victim through the blinking mechanism, he performs the kiss by fluttering his eyelashes against the victim's face. This act is the killing blow, described as disturbingly intimate before the violent murder follows. The name contrasts the gentle imagery of a butterfly with the horrifying nature of the attack.

The legend is introduced early in the 2004 documentary, building dread for every subsequent appearance of Peeping Tom.

After discovering Gavin dead in the hotel bathtub, Erik and the crew debate their options and ultimately choose not to involve the police. Instead, Erik decides to continue the project and reframes it as a documentary about Gavin rather than a straightforward investigation into Peeping Tom. Their decision likely stems from fear of legal complications, wanting to protect the project's completion, or possibly because they believe exposing the truth would make things worse.

Earlier, the crew already suspected the tapes might be a hoax, so they may not fully believe Peeping Tom is real and fear being accused of murder.

Sophia and Feldman initially believe filming the tunnel with a camera will protect them since the lens acts as a human eye. However, when Peeping Tom appears in the tunnel footage, he also starts showing up in other clips they shoot. This suggests his presence has infected the camera itself, any footage recorded while the camera is on brings him closer, regardless of location. The camera becomes a conduit for his presence rather than a protective barrier.

The documentary's premise of using the camera as a 'human eye' sets up this ironic twist where the tool meant to protect them becomes a vector for evil.

In additional footage, Sophia recounts a dream where she stares down the tunnel for the full hour without blinking, realizing she has summoned Peeping Tom. She claims to have found a way to defeat him, but the scene ends with her shattering a glass picture frame and using the shards to cut off her eyelids. This extreme act appears to be her attempt to permanently prevent herself from ever blinking again, believing this will either stop Peeping Tom or give her power over him.

Earlier scenes establish that not blinking is the only defense against Peeping Tom, Sophia takes this to a horrifying logical extreme.

The movie deliberately leaves Peeping Tom's existence ambiguous. The crew uncovers that Sophia and Feldman previously won an award for a documentary that used an actor to portray a real person, suggesting the legend could be a hoax. However, the footage shows things that seem physically impossible, Feldman's mysterious death occurs off-camera, and Gavin ultimately vanishes. The ending offers no confirmation, Erik remains silent when asked if Peeping Tom is real, and the mid-credits scene shows Sophia in an asylum seemingly caressing his face.

The documentary-within-a-documentary structure plays with reality from the start, making everything suspect.

Erik receives a package containing a DVCam film, a separate note addressed to Sophia, Gavin's journal, and a hotel keycard. These items guide the crew to a hotel room where they discover Gavin's lifeless body in the bathtub. The mysterious package suggests Gavin or someone (or something) knew what would happen and arranged for the evidence to be delivered.

The package mirrors how the original 'Don't Watch' tapes were discovered, items left behind that pull investigators deeper into the mystery.

After finding Gavin's body, Erik chooses to continue the project rather than turn everything over to the police. He reframes the documentary as the story of Gavin's obsession and descent, rather than a straightforward investigation into whether Peeping Tom is real. This decision likely stems from wanting Gavin's death to mean something, the potential fame and success of the project, or possibly a growing obsession of his own mirroring Gavin's.

Erik's earlier skepticism about the tapes' authenticity contrasts sharply with his later willingness to exploit a friend's death for the project.

According to the legend's rules, once summoned, Peeping Tom closes in with each blink. The moment a victim blinks, they effectively 'invite' him closer. This creates mounting tension as the victim fights the natural, involuntary urge to blink. The longer they stare without blinking, the farther away he remains, but the physical and psychological toll of not blinking eventually becomes unbearable, forcing a blink that brings him dangerously close.

This mechanic establishes the escalating tension in both the 2004 documentary footage and Gavin's later attempt to repeat the ritual.