Watched the 2016 documentary Tower which is now available streaming. This one is about the University of Texas sniper who terrorized the campus in 1966. Charles Whitman took over the tower on campus and indiscriminately shot and killed/wounded around 50 people over the course of 90 minutes.
This documentary goes in almost no detail about the sniper – it’s focused on the people on the ground and the officers who finally took him down. It does so using a combination of archival footage from reporters and other people on scene and interviews with the survivors. The interviews are interesting in that they got actors to provide voice overs for re-enactments which are done via some excellent rotoscope animation (rotoscoping = filming the scene and then animating over the actors/locations). This combination – plus the editing – turn the movie almost into more of a thriller than a static documentary. The rotoscoping also specifically removes the sometimes cheese factor that can come from re-enactments.
Overall, it’s a really good documentary – one that’s actually exciting and terrifying. It cuts from the rotoscoped actors to the survivor interviews (when those people are still alive) which adds added punch to the drama. It’s suitably moving as well and makes a direct connection briefly between modern shooters and the 1966 event. It’s a very good film.
Score: 87