Review of Voyeur (2017) by John M — 19 Dec 2017

Peeping tom. So this is a documentary about real life creep Gerald Foos. He previously owned a motel in his younger days. Little did his guests know that he had modified the building so as to have full visibility to every room through the ventilation system and used it to watch his guests on the nightly.

Much like a Bond villain, he can't take his secret to the grave. When he is compelled to reveal his secret, that is where we, the audience, come in. Now I just stumbled upon this while perusing the Netflix library, and it seemed interesting enough.

The subject is certainly sordid, and the preview trailer that automatically playing was attention grabbing. As far as documentaries go, this is far from my favorite, but I do suppose that it could have been worse.

The one interesting thing that this documentary has going for it is that it is just as much about its subject as it is the person studying him. Acclaimed author Gay Talese is the one that wrote the novel about this guy, and he is prominently featured in the documentary.

This isn't just about what went down in this man's hotel, it is also about the article Talese wrote, and the fallout that happened when one of the sources ended up getting discredited. I do believe I may be making this sound more interesting than it actually is.

It's not like it is boring, but there is quite frankly not enough material to make a 95 minute feature about. I could see this working as a documentary short that lasts about 30 minutes and doesn't overstay its welcome.

As it stands, it starts to repeat itself in fairly short order. So much of this features this doll house, and our subject matter lifting up the roof and peering in for dramatic effect. It's a neat visual.

.. at first. After it gets overused for the fifteenth time they use it, it stops holding your attention. Even though it is dark and interesting, it's never captivating, and the movie that handled sexual deviances way better is Tickled, although it does feels weird comparing a documentary to another documentary.

The subject itself is pretty gross and it does skeeve you out, although I did keep getting yanked out of the movie because Gerald Foos sounds exactly like Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski. Voyeur is all right, and it won't make a huge difference one way or the other if you decide to watch or keep on scrolling by it.