Movies
IFC Center Showing Creepy Documentary ‘Cropsey’
IFC writes in to us that “the spine-tingling documentary Cropsey, which peels back the layers of fact and fiction behind one of New York’s most disturbing unsolved mysteries, will debut theatrically on Friday, June 4 at New York City’s IFC Center, before spreading to Los Angeles, Denver, Austin, Boston, and additional bookings through Cinema Purgatorio.” Read on for VOD information and a clip.
Gravitas Ventures has picked up North American VOD rights to the doc feature, which will be available nationwide on VOD beginning June 1, 2010. “We are thrilled to bring the visually arresting Cropsey to a nationwide Video On Demand audience. Just a few months ago, indieWIRE had called Cropsey one of the best undistributed films of 2009 and we are excited to collaborate on a such a comprehensive release strategy,” commented Nolan Gallagher, founder and CEO of Gravitas Ventures.
Cropsey will also screen as a “special presentation” at the Staten Island Film Festival. This late-night screening will take place on the grounds of the infamous Willowbrook State School (now the College of Staten Island). Willowbrook, a psychiatric ward, was shuttered after its abuses were profiled in a groundbreaking 1972 expose from Geraldo Rivera.
Growing up on Staten Island, NY, filmmakers Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio had often heard the legend of “Cropsey.” For the kids on the island, he was the escaped mental patient who lived in the tunnels of Willowbrook and came out late at night to snatch children off the streets. “Cropsey” remained just that, an urban legend, until the summer of 1987, when Jennifer Schweiger, a 13-year-old girl with Down syndrome, disappeared from her neighborhood. She was found buried in a shallow grave five weeks later on the grounds of Willowbrook. In Cropsey, Brancaccio and Zeman return to Staten Island to undertake their own investigation of Jennifer and four other missing children as well as the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearances. Brancaccio and Zeman skillfully combine a riveting true-crime drama with a personal exploration of the Cropsey myth, uncovering a reality more terrifying than any urban legend.
Cropsey is unrated with a running time of 84 minutes. For screenings, trailer and more, visit www.cropseylegend.com
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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