Cropsey
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Cropsey

2009, Crime  -   36 Comments
7.47
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Ratings: 7.47/10 from 59 users.

Realizing the urban legend of their youth has actually come true; two filmmakers delve into the mystery surrounding five missing children and the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearances.

Cropsey is an investigative-crime horror-documentary film, written and directed by Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio.

The film initially begins as an examination of "Cropsey," a boogeyman-like figure from New York urban legend, before segueing into the story of Andre Rand, a convicted child killer from Staten Island.

The name "Cropsey", has nebulous origins. At the time of the kidnappings depicted in the documentary, Cropsey had come to be New York vernacular for any psychotically violent criminal.

One of the detectives interviewed in the film suggests that this generic label was used enough to frighten children that the name came to refer to an idea of a particular individual rather than a simple archetype. Buy the film at Amazon.com.

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Evan
Evan
5 years ago

Who narrates this? Sounds like Joseph Gordon Levitt

T K
T K
7 years ago

Rand was also a maintenance worker in the Tysens lane apartments in New Dorp. When Alice Pereira went missing, how did the cops not suspect him from the beginning. The Trumps owned those apartments and did little to help. (Trumps father) Andre Rand burn in hell!

Kim russom
Kim russom
8 years ago

Who is this guy that found the grave and why did he wait till next day to say something and why did they not interview him who is he?

Nikki Anela Utufa Evans
Nikki Anela Utufa Evans
10 years ago

So sad! I don't think I have ever heard of this before. I haven't even watched the doc. yet since my internet is so slow I need to let it load but it sounds like it will be very hard to watch and make me very angry! Thanks for the heads up!

disqus_9JCvCtbisE
disqus_9JCvCtbisE
10 years ago

So a guy walks up to a grave and says dig here and no one questions that? I don't know all the details but it's quite a coincidence. Did they get the right guy, God I hope so.

dmxi
dmxi
11 years ago

williwbrook.......americas own little 'rumania',quite telling of a societies approach to their defenceless.

oQ
oQ
11 years ago

I had never heard of this case, it reaffirmes how many mental hospitals in those days were treating people like caged animals and even guinea pigs for scientific experiments.
Rand sure has the appearance and the look of a deranged person even though he sounds intelligent enough in his correspondance.
Very well made documentary.
1i

DigiWongaDude
DigiWongaDude
11 years ago

Disturbing. He may have been convicted wrongly, but he wasn't wrongly convicted:

I, for one, am convinced beyond reasonable doubt they got the right man. He's not behaving like any innocent person would. He's behaving like a guilty person, who has been locked up for breaking the rules by a society that themselves didn't play by, in convicting him with circumstantial evidence; as though this argument should sway more moral weight than the crimes themselves. So ultimately he taunts...but never agrees to actually meet - this is the telling part, for he knows if he slipped up even a little in conversation, his little game of righteous finger pointing will be put firmly in it's rightful place - he led those children to their deaths.

The rest of the finger pointing is for society as a whole to take heed from, in it's reluctant quest to confront such horrific crimes. But the crimes themselves, the loss of those innocent children, lie firmly with Andre Rand. Justice, has been served.

WiseGapist
WiseGapist
11 years ago

Powerful documentary, horrific but captivating. Not one to watch while eating, but definitely satisfies that all too human desire to peer into a sick and depraved reality (hopefully) far-removed from our own.

dmxi
dmxi
11 years ago

the cop with the mono-brow looked like he knew 'his' satanic stuff & rand was mates with christopher walken (look-a-like) which explains alot !
"off with their heads!"-i say -

Shadowblur
Shadowblur
11 years ago

....What about the illuminati, they do ceremonies, crucify children for Satan? Stanton Island is a perfect place to build a mental institution, (powers-that-be purposely built it there) Stanton Island is well hidden in a way. Once every so many years, the heads of some countries gather for this secret ceremony it was recorded by someone, you can find it on youtube somewhere, were these kids used in it? Place the blame on the homeless who live on Stanton, perfect stooges.

onepercenter13
onepercenter13
11 years ago

Why do I get he feeling that there has been a massive injustice here.
I have my doubts if this man is even guilty.
Everything in this Docco is hear say, could have, I believe he probably, ect ect....been the so called eye witnesses are etremely unreliable.
SOMEBODY did kill those kids, and thats a fact.......but there is little or no evidence to suggest this guy has done it.
I might be wrong....but this case needs to be properl examied, by independant inestigators

Carl Franklin Hendershot
Carl Franklin Hendershot
11 years ago

I hate being a physic ~ but you had solved this case with a few people who all know a bit more then they are talking about. Dam it ~ now I have to have horrible dreams of these bastards.

Pysmythe
Pysmythe
11 years ago

Pick one? Okay, I'll subscribe to the idea that some part of Rand actually believed he was doing the world a favor by ridding it of unwanted, subpar children. After all, even the most murderous, twisted freaks the human race can produce probably sleep better at night with some type of good cover story for their own purely hellish impulses.
Very well done doc, but a tough watch.

bringmeredwine
bringmeredwine
11 years ago

A disturbing story that I'd never heard of.
Do not watch this doc if you are easily upset by pictures of severely neglected children.
Images from Willowbrook looked exactly like the footage from the Romainian orphanages.
To think we had a place like that right here in North America.
Whatever happened to those poor little souls from Willowbrook? At least some of the Romanian children were adopted.(by Americans)
In my mind, places like Willowbrook create a portal to Hell.
No wonder the ex-worker from Willowbrook was nuts. Maybe he did have something to do with the disappearences, but all of them?
If a guy was living in the cemetary and supposedly committing necrophilia, where were the authorities?
Why were people allowed to live in the old tunnels and in the woods?
Why didn't the police flush them out BEFORE children started disappearing?
Who owned the abandoned property?
What the hell kind of place is Staton Island?
As if retarded children could play outside at night with out any supervision, and weirdos just roamed the streets inviting kids into their vehicles and no one ran home to tell their parents.
I didn't believe "Little Miss Cornrows" for a second, by the way.
None of this makes sense.

There will probably never be real answers about who killed those children. It could have been a "pillar of the community" (it usually is) or a relative.

wald0
wald0
11 years ago

Haven't we seen something about Cropsey on this site before, some other doc.?

Shadowblur
Shadowblur
11 years ago

....My God, this would make one incredible mystery/thriller movie!! It has all the hall marks of a horror movie, no need to add any fiction in it; it has all that in truth! Has anyone made a movie out of this? If not, they ought to!

wald0
wald0
11 years ago

They should prosecute whomever is responsible for the conditions at that mental hospital Willowbrook. Those children were abused horribly, neglected, and abandoned by everyone who knew their struggle and did nothing. This guy looks crazy/retarded himself its hard to picture him as staff at a mental hospital. He looks as if he should have been a patient. Anyone entering such an environment with a pre-existing mental illness would seem doomed, in my opinion. How could such an environment not contribute to their psychopathy?