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CROPSEY Discussion

post #1 of 8
6/22/10 at 9:17pm
Thread Starter 
You ever see a movie that you like, but thought was pretty flawed in the end, yet kept coming back to it? This is one of those movies.

Cropsey is a documentary about an urban legend, a serial killer, and Staten Island. It would make a nice companion piece to PARADISE LOST, as it deals with similar themes. The film is part docu-horror (a la the Blair Witch Project) and part Zodiac-esque crime saga. It's a very effective movie in a lot of ways -- the editing and storytelling is stellar, and there's a sequence near the end where the filmmakers investigate an abandoned mental hospital that's tense and creepy as hell.

But the movie's central thesis, that the man at the center of the legend was convicted (twice) by a bloodthirsty media and parents desperate for answers and that we should make up our own minds, is flawed. The film presents you with so much evidence, perhaps unintentionally, for this man's guilt (simply in that it wants to be a horror movie), that you walk away thinking "well, probably" when they want you to think "well, maybe."

It's playing at IFC Center right now, and will probably come out on DVD soon. I liked it quite a bit, and I think the horror fans -- particularly those of Nightmare on Elm Street -- will get a kick out of it, and so will the crime nerds.

Check it out.
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post #2 of 8
6/28/10 at 3:09pm
Hey RathBandu, glad to hear you enjoyed the film. It's so great to be able to hear directly from our audiences.

In case there's anyone here who'd like to see CROPSEY, there are a lot of ways to catch it:

If you're in NYC, it's still playing at IFC -- they've extended our run a few times and we're now in our fourth week.

We're also playing in other cities across the US and in Canada. We've got screenings coming up in Denver, CO; Bushnell, IL; Montreal, QC; Anchorage, AK; Austin, TX; Los Angeles, CA; Portland, OR; and more cities after that. The full schedule is available here:
http://cinemapurgatorio.com/movies/cropsey

If you're not in any of the cities where we're screening, we'll also be available via Video On Demand starting July 2nd, and on DVD this fall.

-Joshua Zeman
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post #3 of 8
7/8/10 at 3:13pm
Carly's super interested in this but is afraid that the docu-horror sequences will feature jump-scares or pop-up moments or something. Are the docu-horror segments like that or are they more just creepy and atmospheric?
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post #4 of 8
7/9/10 at 7:01pm
Thread Starter 
The docu-horror stuff is atmospheric, for the most part, but there's one sequence near the end that is a jump-scare, admittedly a very good one. And those sequences are few and far between -- a large chunk of the documentary is shot during the day.
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post #5 of 8
7/9/10 at 7:06pm
My review from last year- http://chud.com/articles/articles/19...SEY/Page1.html

I've recommended this to a bunch of friends, glad to see that it got a theatrical release here in NYC.
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post #6 of 8
7/9/10 at 10:52pm
Comcast subscribers will be happy to know Cropsey is available On Demand. I've been waiting for it to show up since I read Alex's review.
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post #7 of 8
7/10/10 at 12:01am
It's on Time Warner also. I plan on giving it a look-see this weekend.
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post #8 of 8
10/5/11 at 11:39am

Just gave this a watch on Netflix Instant, thanks to my interests in urban legends and a few stray positive mentions around the net.

 

I found it a very interesting and appropriately unsettling documentary about Rand and the crimes he had been accused of. I agree that while the documentary clearly wanted to leave the subject of Rand's guilt open, it was hard to be on his side with the bizarre and creepy correspondence with the filmmakers. Of course I couldn't exactly bring myself to side with the people who still believed that eeee-vil satanic cults orchestrated the kidnappings either.

 

I thought Alex's review was good but I have to disagree with his criticism that the filmmakers' on-camera participation in the documentary was a bit of Michael Moore-ian vanity. I took their childhood connection to the Stanton Island area at face-value and so it never bothered me that they would be front and center in investigating a creepy local mystery.

 

Overall I'd definitely recommend anyone with any interest in folklore and/or true crime to check the film out.

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