Synopsis: Growing up on Staten Island, filmmakers Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio had often heard the legend of "Cropsey." For the kids in their neighborhood, Cropsey was the escaped mental patient who lived in the old abandoned Willowbrook Mental Institution, who would come out late at night and snatch children off the streets. Sometimes Cropsey had a hook for a hand, other times he wielded a bloody axe, but it didn’t matter, Cropsey was always out there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to get them.This is a pretty solid documentary that's sort of a true crime meets urban legend tale. The alleged killer is real, Andre Rand, and creepy enough but they tie a lot of coincidences to missing children to his life and delve into mental institutions, the human condition and how society deals with issues. They seek out answers but never really get them, yet they present a lot of interesting facts and theories through a series of interviews and news footage and such.
Luckily for the filmmakers, there is plenty of footage. The story was well covered by the press in Staten Island and every angle is covered with reporters and even a Geraldo Rivera TV special. In my opinion, nearly everything they have on Rand is circumstantial, but some are pretty big stretches to be coincidence. Today we need DNA to convict and there's nothing that concrete here. But it's a fascinating, creepy story and a very well made documentary with a nice style of linking the urban legend to real life.
Is the boogeyman real? These filmmakers think so. You probably will too after watching fact-based horror tale.
7.5/10
