The success of horror mockumentaries such as Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project show that audiences want a realistic horror experience. Maybe it’s because unlike laughing at a teen slasher movie axe-killer spilling buckets of fake blood, we get a bigger thrill when we can imagine that life can be as scary as what’s on the screen.
Real documentaries are never as scary though, are they? When we see movies about serial killers, they are either highly dramatized (The Black Dahlia, Silence of the Lambs) or a dry documentary combining horrific crime scene photos with an interview or two. Just like when we realized Hannibal Lecter was based off of a real guy, when the whispered tales of the Cropsey Maniac, an axe-wielding killer turns out to be based off of truth as well, we stop, listen, and watch.
CROPSEY, directed by Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio, is a documentary about the Cropsey maniac legends and the “Boogeyman of Staten Island” Andre Rand, the supposed source of some of the disappearances. The trailer shows that the film promises the same realistic, creepy filming style we’ve all come to love in scary movies. The only difference is we can’t tell ourselves “it was just a movie” when we go to bed that night.
Will you go see CROPSEY? Or do you want your horror purely fictional?
Source: Gordonanthewhale