Cropsey: Critic Reviews

MovieWeb: 0 reviews

87%

RottenTomatoes: 30 reviews

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Jeannette Catsoulis New York Times (Top Critic)

80

Perched at the intersection of psychological survey and serial-killer expose, "Cropsey" loosens the girdle of the documentary form to accommodate much more than facts.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Wesley Morris Boston Globe (Top Critic)

88

Modern horror films rarely capture that pit-of-the-stomach feeling the way this movie does.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Nicolas Rapold Village Voice (Top Critic)

The latest Cinema Purgatorio release is really a scary story told in the dark, in the get-this whisper of documentary.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Steve Dollar Wall Street Journal (Top Critic)

Perhaps most chilling is that the movie leaves the mysteries unresolved.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Richard Brody New Yorker (Top Critic)

The core of the story is standard TV fare (and the techniques aren't exactly original), but the filmmakers tell it with wit, verve, and compassion.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Bill Goodykoontz Arizona Republic (Top Critic)

80

A documentary that delves into what happens when the ghost stories you told as kids, the stuff of urban legends, seem to come true.
Full Review » 2 years ago
John Anderson Variety (Top Critic)

Cropsey has all the trappings of a true-crime TV special, but with an undercurrent of cultural exposition that is intelligent, profound and unsettling.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Lou Lumenick New York Post (Top Critic)

75

On several levels, this film is a real-life horror story that puts most Hollywood movies to shame.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Mark Olsen Los Angeles Times (Top Critic)

60

The story of the unsolved abductions and the man who might have become the scapegoat for a community is troubling enough. No big-screen trickery is required.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Nick Schager House Next Door

A crude episode of 48 Hours.
Full Review » 1 year ago
Scott Weinberg FEARnet

80

As a clever combination between truth and fiction, it's a rather impressive little film. Creepy too.
Full Review » 1 year ago
Beth Accomando KPBS.org

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.
Full Review » 1 year ago
Mike Scott Times-Picayune

75

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 » 2 years ago
Brian Tallerico Movie Retriever

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.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Matt Pais Metromix.com

80

The best, scariest mysteries don't have definitive answers, and Cropsey becomes a Zodiac-style whodunit of the spookiest order.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Nick Davis Nick's Flick Picks

42

The conceptual, even poetic inquiry that percolates in the opening scenes gives way to flat-footed and unresolvable detective work that makes the filmmakers too important.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Drew McWeeny HitFix

... the stuff of horror films, and the way it folds back into the idea of how the Cropsey stories spread... that's the stuff that Cropsey does best.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Zak Jason Boston Phoenix

88

A real-life nightmare, Cropsey shakes you as well as inspires you to pursue the terrifying truth.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Frank Lovece Film Journal International

Documentary of a spate of child kidnappings/killings in Staten Island, New York, in the 1970s, tied thematically to the titular Hudson Valley boogeyman myth.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Cole Smithey ColeSmithey.com

75

"Cropsey" bridges an essential chapter of American history with a nightmare legend that is still referred to in hushed tones.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Bob Mondello NPR

70

...they've gone to great lengths to raise questions in the audience's mind about the [Rand] case. The answers they've found are questions, their conclusion, inconclusive.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Michelle Orange Movieline

75

Zeman and Brancaccio structure the film as a sort of homemade murder procedural, where pavement-pounding crowd-sourcing proposes an alternative to the modern cold-case staple of DNA evidence.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Kent Turner Film-Forward.com

75

This horrifying documentary stirs up, if not confirms, your worst fears.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Jennifer Merin About.com

80

In this thriller documentary, filmmakers Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman discover that the urban legend that haunted their childhoods is terrifyingly true.
Full Review » 2 years ago
Chris Barsanti Filmcritic.com

60

Gripping
Full Review » 2 years ago