Cropsey is really well-paced in doling out both large and small revelations.

| May 24, 2023

Most entertaining yet less convincing when exploring the urban legend.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 5, 2020

One of the creepiest documentaries ever made, Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio's film shows how some urban legends are based on true stories even more unsettling than the myths.

| Nov 28, 2018

Cropsey is an interesting enough documentary patchwork, and while I do enjoy films of this type which pursue the story as it is found, I never fully trusted the filmmaker's intents, here.

| Original Score: 3.0/5 | Oct 29, 2017

The filmmakers overreach trying to explain the meaning of a community's revulsion and rush to judgment regarding the man convicted of one of the murders, but Cropsey still gets under your skin.

| Mar 3, 2014

The film is eerie and thought-provoking, raising worthwhile questions about the pursuit of justice without losing compassion for the victims or their families.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 3, 2014

Whether they're interviewing so-called experts or casual observers -- or even reading from Rand's letters -- Zeman and Brancaccio confront fear, disappointment, and hope, again and again.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 3, 2014

As intriguing as it is downright eerie.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 3, 2014

It isn't a pleasant journey -- nor one that is likely to be soon forgotten -- though it is a sobering, skillfully produced reminder that sometimes fact can be far more terrifying than fiction.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 3, 2014

Nothing is answered definitively here. But if there's a real Cropsey to be found, it may be Staten Island itself.

| Mar 3, 2014

Disturbing and flavorful.

| Mar 3, 2014

Cropsey is a creepy documentary with all the elements of a horror film about a demented serial killer, and an extra ingredient: This one is real.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 3, 2014

This disturbing true-crime documentary takes its name from a local bogeyman that video makers Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio were warned about when they were growing up on Staten Island.

| Mar 3, 2014

Not quite an investigative triumph but definitely a grabber.

| Feb 11, 2014

A crude episode of 48 Hours.

| Jan 21, 2011

As a clever combination between truth and fiction, it's a rather impressive little film. Creepy too.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 9, 2011

Films like The Blair Witch Project use a fake documentary format to try and create a horror film about an urban myth that turns out to be real. Cropsey, though, is the real deal.

| Dec 18, 2010

As disturbing as the expertly paced Cropsey is, it's not some schlocky spookfest. It's a well-produced and well-researched bit of investigative journalism.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 29, 2010

Begins as the documentation of a terrible legend, but evolves into a true story of a monster, and that's what makes Cropsey downright frightening.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 13, 2010

Brancaccio and Zeman don't offer any easy answers, merely throwing all of the many issues of the story of Cropsey into a melting pot of danger, terror, and secrecy.

| Aug 6, 2010