Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman ’s Cropsey

Screening : Tue, Apr 28, 11:00PM - Sat, May 02, 8:30PM

7 hours and 3 movies later I’m back from Tribeca and my head is still spinning. I really enjoyed all the movies I saw today the first being About Elly - which honestly needs some more time in my head before I write anything on it. My second film of the day,  The House of the Devil, was just some good old fashioned horror centered on Satanic cults in the 80’s.  There wasn’t much that was very “TakePart” about the film  - except that it was amazingly refreshing to see a horror film that steered clear of the current “torture” trend of horror that seems so popular today and that I find to be quite disgusting.

My third film of the day, Cropsey (see photo above), actually yielded not only a lot of entertainment (and more satanic cults?!) but also an important debate about the reliability and integrity of our justice system.  The film’s main focus is on Staten Island and a group of children that went missing throughout the 1980’s.  The disappearance of the children is connected to an old urban legend about an escaped mental patient who supposedly wielded large blades and lived under a closed mental institution. The disappearances are also connected, in a more concrete way, to a man by the name of Andre Rand.  Mr. Rand worked as a janitor at a school/institution called Willowbrook where mentally disturbed kids were “dumped.”  Willowbrook was apparently a horrible horrible place and after Geraldo Riveria reported on Willowbrook back in the 1970’s, it slowly dwindled to a close in the 1980’s.

In the 1980’s Andre Rand was convicted of kidnapping one of the little girls that was actually found dead and it’s generally assumed by the community that he kidnapped and killed the other missing children that were never found.  In the present day (almost 20 years later) Andre Rand is seen nearing parole but also being put on trial for the kidnapping of another of the missing children from the early 80’s - even though no body has been found.   And while there is much circumstantial evidence to suggest that Rand is the likely culprit of the crimes, there is almost no real evidence against him.  Of course I can only go by what the filmmakers told me (cameras weren’t allowed in court) but on the surface it seemed that there was no way a jury could convict Rand.  The witnesses who talk in the film appear to be without specific details and there isn’t much to account for the fact that were unable to supply the same information when the little girl actually disappeared.

So when Rand is convicted of the crime it is somewhat shocking.  And while part of me was happy that the families of the missing children had some closure I couldn’t help but feel that the verdict and Mr. Rand’s treatment was not right - that he was convicted wrongly and conveniently.  Also, just seeing a piece of the news report on Willowbrook has to make one wonder about the psychological effects of working there.  I find it hard to believe you could spend years there and not leave disturbed.  Which in turn suggests that Mr. Rand shouldn’t be in jail but should be getting help himself.  It is also unacceptable, even if it sucks (for lack of a better word), to convict someone of a crime unless you can actually prove it with evidence.

That being said I completely recommended Cropsey.  It weaves a watchable story of the legends told to children, a tragic occurrence of crime (both the children and the existence of the institutions) and a man caught in the middle.