Directors Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio to Host Cropsey Screening on Constellation.tv

Steve Barton   |  

Mar 5, 2012

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Nothing is scarier than stuff that really happened, and in their creepy documentary Cropsey, Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio investigate this Long Island legend used to scare the bejesus out of children in hopes of making them listen to their parents. Now they have more to share.

The directorial duo will be hosting a screening of Cropsey on Constellation.tv next Sunday night, March 11, at 8pm EST. Zeman and Brancaccio will be giving an introduction to the film via webcam and will be available to chat during the film before giving a post-screening Q&A. For more on the award-winning 2009 film, check out the Cropsey website , follow Cropsey on Twitter (@cropseylegend) and check out the Cropsey Facebook page.

Synopsis
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.

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