Cropsey

Watch out, this is one of those creepy documentaries. I have watched a couple of these before, most relevant is Killer Legends. It talked about four urban legends, where they came from, the truth behind them, the real trials, and movies that they inspired.

It was fantastic and a bit scary.

Cropsey is very similar, but instead of four, we are given the full length to talk about just one. This Cropsey story is something that may have spread lots of places, but was focused mainly in New York and the Staten Island area. This was your standard tale. Don’t play alone in the woods as a kid, or Cropsey will grab you, especially if you are naughty, and you won’t be seen again.

But this Staten Island area also had an abandoned mental facility. That was still there. That was reported on by Geraldo Fucking Rivera, so you know it is serious. It was shut down. That building plus some tunnels in the area were said to be home to some homeless and leftover mental people.

And hey, there was also missing kids!

The most famous story was Jennifer, a girl with Down syndrome, who went missing in 1987. The whole community came together to find the missing girl, with their only facts pointing to Andre Rand, an older homeless man who used to be a janitor at the mental institution and was kind of awkward.

We assume they searched out of the goodness of the heart. No other reason.

So, a lot of people didn’t trust him, and because he was reported being with the girl, a witch hunt began. He was put on trial and of course found guilty. However, there was more than just that girl missing. There were quite a few missing children from that area, and four were notable in that the Law people figured that maybe Rand had something to do with them too.

And with that, we get rushed into modern day. A trial, a re-opening of Rand’s case, and seeing if they can incorporate evidence for a few other disappearing kids. Murder or who knows what. Maybe they can find out where the fuck they are or why they are gone or anything?

Because rumors are rampant. Cults, satanists, sadistic people with disabilities, who knows.

And I think the trial stuff is where this documentary starts to lose it. Early on it was exciting and scary. When they go into theories, it is a lot more interesting. The truth seems a lot less exciting, especially when we realize how little we know. I was a bit disappointed with the ending of the documentary.

Maybe I just wanted it to be a bit more creepier. Yeah, probably.

I am probably just angry with a lack of answers and am left with implied reality. But that is on me. It is an interesting documentary, just one that seemed to flicker out by the end.