Spikeopath What is a Cropsey? A Cropsey is the name given to a bogeyman used to frighten children by way of safe education (stay away from that place/that man/them woods etc). When Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio grew up they learnt that their Cropsey was in fact real. Or was he?Andre Rand was a convicted child kidnapper from Staten Island who is strongly suspected to have committed a number of child kidnappings and murders between 1972 and 1987. Most of the missing children were special needs cases, and with Rand having close ties to Willowbrook State School, a sorry place for the mentally ill thats conditions were exposed by Geraldo Rivera's infamous documentary in 1972, and his known living arrangements out in the Greenbelt Woods around Willowbrook, he seemed the likely culprit for sure.Zeman and Brancaccio do a sterling job of piecing together all available evidence and reports involving Rand, including interviews with family and friends of the missing children and the detectives who worked on the case. They even have epistle contact with Rand as they try to arrange a meeting with their very own bogeyman. The footage and stories involving Willowbrook are skin crawlingly effective, the visits to the ruins of the place equally creepy.We constantly see pictures of the missing children, and that of the only one who was found, murdered, close to one of Rand's makeshift campsites. These are real horrors in this horror film, and they cut the psyche like a knife. Unfortunately the makers lose a little focus in the final third, as more revelations and accusations enter the debate some of the unease wears off, the doc gets chocked as it were, and some of the harsh realities are replaced by fanciful supposition.Still, in the main this is a tremendous documentary, challenging and unbiased. It could just have been Zeman and Brancaccio walking around interviewing the usual suspects et al, but they go deeper than that to leave a lasting impression on both the mind and the soul. 8.5/10

valleyjohn Cropsey was said to be a a mythical monster / man that lived on Staten Island , New York who supposedly kidnapped and killed children. The one big problem with this monster is that he was not so mythical, in fact he was very real and he goes by the name of Andre Rand. I don't know what it is about the 1970's but people seemed to be incredible slow and somewhat naive. On Staten Island children went missing over a long period of time but nobody seemed that bothers , including the police. Parents still let there kids out and they still went missing . People were odd and especially in America or were they?The one thing Cropsey shows is that people had a completely different mindset back then and that's the overriding impression this film gives me. On Staten Island there used to be an horrific mental institute. One of which you only see in horror films. There is original footage of how the kids housed in this hospital were treated and it's very , very disturbing.The film makers try to get to the bottom of who killed these kids by interviewing family and witnesses but none seem that credible. You start to believe that there has been a miscarriage of justice with Andre Rand but despite the lack of evidence , he and his lawyers do themselves no favours. Ultimately this is a frustrating film because unlike the Paradise Lost documentaries this answers very little.

Targe This doc is worth it just to see Heraldo Rivera as a student reporter, lol! This movie explores a dark urban legend that very much appears to have been true - that a deranged lunatic did indeed lurk in the ruins of an abandoned mental asylum and abduct young mentally challenged children in order to 'put them out of their misery' on Staten Island, New York.The film-makers make no pretense about going for the 'scare-factor jugular' and deliberately film the terrifying abandoned asylum at night, from creepy camera angles, and all with what sounds like a modified version of the shark attack theme from JAWS playing in the background.Some reviewers may choose to crucify them for that, but I don't, by doing that they turn a somewhat dry documentary into the Blair Witch Project of documentaries, and creeped me RIGHT OUT THE DOOR, which was really fun and unexpected.The purpose of reviewing this film should not be a voice opinion on whether Rand did the crimes or not, but many reviewers are doing just that, so I'll weigh in too.I am happy to say (and much to my surprise) 'New York's Finest' actually got their man this time around. It's a shame they couldn't nail him for murder, and surprising they couldn't, given that: 1. He ADMITTED to kidnapping Jennifer Schweiger, and wanting to end the suffering of all mentally challenged children!!! A child who turns up murdered and buried in a shallow grave near one of his campsites!2. He is placed, REPEATEDLY near the crime scenes, near the victims prior to their abduction, his car is reported, he is reported hanging around or working near victims. He apparently abducted an ENTIRE BUS OF KIDS from a playground for goddsakes!!!3. His BIZARRE behavior (catatonic, wild-eyed, drooling monstrousity) after viewing the Heraldo documentary on conditions at the asylum where he worked, and his subsequent comment to police that 'we the staff were victims too' All of this and further details in the doc Should have easily been enough to convict him. The film-makers make a convincing case that is not tight enough for a unanimous jury decision, partly based imo on fear of false conviction due to the fact that in this case, 'he just looks too much like a serial killer, maybe we are making a mistake based on his appearance??'This is an excellent doc for those that like crime scene investigation thrillers, and don't mind being a little freaked out. Make sure to watch this with the lights down low on a windy stormy night, like I did! This film has some of the creepiest camera work outside of Blair Witch, and the cameraman should go on to do very well in Hollywood! I'd be grabbing him up if I was a horror director. The film-makers themselves have also done an amazing job, both with setting and sound editing, and they have BALLS OF STEEL for creeping around that asylum at night!WELL DONE TO THE NYPD!!! You couldn't get death, but at least you got this monster out of circulation!

robocopssadside-1 "Cropsey" is a brilliant, yet unsettling documentary about an age-old campfire urban legend that became horrifyingly real in the 1980's for Staten Island, New York. The legend has different variances: A burn victim from a teenage prank turning into a homicidal campsite stalker (as seen in 80's slasher classic "The Burning"). A former attendant worker at a Staten Island mental institution that returns to the location after its closure, surviving in the woods and underground tunnel systems, snatching up kids in the dead of night. This documentary focuses on the latter myth., and explains how and why it became a harsh reality for residents of an "everybody knows everybody" type town.While the film raises many questions but provides little answers (mainly because the case displayed in the film is decades old, and was decided on circumstantial evidence), it is done really well and is painfully interesting. Recommended if you are into cold case files and documentaries that deal with things that are unanswered, and will probably remain that way for a very long time, if not forever.