Event

CROPSEY

In Person: Filmmaker Joshua Zeman - Q&A and Reception
Wednesday, August 25 at 7:30pm
Members: $6 - Public: $10

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 12-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. (USA,
2010, 84 min., color)