Psycho vs Peeping Tom

Were Peeping Tom and Psycho the first two slashers? (Or, at least, the ultimate proto-slashers?). Which came closest to the genre we know and perhaps love today? Do both deserve to be called masterpieces? And why was one of them trashed to the point of utter destruction?

Peeping Tom and Psycho were released just two months apart, but their reception could not have been more different. Peeping Tom was trashed across British media and flopped so badly it destroyed the career of its director, the legendary Michael Powell. All goodwill was taken away. How could he have made something so despicable? It took decades before the film was rehabilitated.

Meanwhile, just some weeks later, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was instantly praised as a masterpiece and became one of the biggest box office hits the year.

More than 60 years later, we measure the films up against each other, look at how similar and different they actually are, and try to decide which was the most groundbreaking, the scariest, the best shot and acted, and, of course, which is actually better.

Could it be true that Peeping Tom was just robbed by prudish British critics and is actually the better film?