Inside you’ll find the official trailer for Cropsey, a new doc by Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio that asks “What if your urban legend were true?” Urban legends–we either dismiss them or accept that they have some grain of truth. Directors Zeman and Brancaccio attempt to uncover one such urban myth as they investigate five missing children and the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearance in Staten Island during their youth. Will this terrifying journey resolve what has haunted them since childhood? The film will be showing at the IFC Center in New York on June 4 while also hitting VOD on June 1, get the full details here.
“Realizing the urban legend of their youth has actually come true, two filmmakers delve into the mystery behind five missing children and the real–life boogeyman linked to their disappearance in their hometown of Staten Island, New York. 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. Later as teenagers, the filmmakers assumed Cropsey was just an urban legend: a cautionary tale used to keep them out of those abandoned buildings and stop them from doing all those things that teenagers like to do. That all changed in the summer of 1987 when a 13–year–old girl with Down syndrome, named Jennifer Schweiger, disappeared from their community. That was the summer all the kids from Staten Island discovered that their urban legend was real. Now as adults Joshua and Barbara have returned to Staten Island to create Cropsey, a feature documentary that delves into the mystery behind Jennifer and four additional missing children. The film also investigates Andre Rand, the real–life boogeyman linked to their disappearances. Embarking on a mysterious journey into the underbelly of their forgotten borough, these filmmakers uncover a reality that is more terrifying than any urban legend.”