Spirit Animal Movie Review (2019)

 

I love being able to meet indie horror film makers at conventions. It’s usually because I’m set up next to or near them, and I end up staring at their DVDs and posters all weekend. My first Cinema Wasteland was no exception. I was set up across from Nekroshark Films and writer/director Madeline Deering. While the poster for another unfinished film got my attention, I was able to get my hands on a copy of this movie to review today.

Madeline was super cool to talk to and I really like the story idea for this flick. Is it perfect? No. Is it really good? Also no. But it’s not the worst film I’ve ever seen and I enjoyed quite a few bits of it. Let’s break it down.

The basic premise of Spirit Animal is simple – a serial killer murders people while wearing different animal masks and using different kill methods that are dependent on the victim. The killer is guided by a sentient tree in the forest that wants to destroy humanity because we’re fucking up the planet.

Makes sense.

The film opens with a couple ads, very much like the Atomic Swans films I’ve recently reviewed. Are they real places? Fuck if I know but I’ll tell you this, after seeing the ad for Dingo Pizza, I really REALLY wanted to eat pizza.

 

Cut to a ‘bartender’ slinging beers and telling us, the viewer/customer, about this weird VHS tape he found by the dumpsters. He then proceeds to break down the two tasks we must do: 1. Play the smell-o-vision scratch card game when certain numbers pop up on screen (I, unfortunately, did not get one); and 2. Play the Spirit Animal drinking game. Every time a shark is on screen, take a drink. Every time you see the plushy shark, take two drinks. 

If I’d actually played along, I would have died of alcohol poisoning before the 2^nd half of the film.

THEN we get to the actual movie, which is a twenty year flashback to a camp, a bunch of kids, and a counselor who’s making them figure out which spirit animal they are – or will be after they die.

Nothing like a little bit of heavy existentialism right before bed, eh kids?

The remainder of the film takes places in the present and a bunch of people are going out to the woods to camp, hang out, and have some fun. Unfortunately for them, the killer, Aarav Niktomi, is about to pee in everyone’s proverbial personal pools.

 

As you can imagine, indie horror is a bit rough. Very low production value, skilled actors are few or non-existent, lame writing/dialogue, sound and lighting unbalanced, and cinematography who? While there are weak aspects in this film as well, it’s actually much better than I expected.

For once, the sound was well balanced. The sound effects didn’t make my ears bleed while the dialogue belonged in your local library. Most of the special effects were practical. I’ll take those any day over crap CGI. There were some digital effects but not enough to irritate.

I really enjoyed the kills, for the most part. Like I said, the practical effects were fun and probably ‘death by pizza cutter’ was my favorite. But each character was killed in a different way. Tim, who always used plastic straws and littered the ground with them, had his brain sucked out through one by the killer wearing a shark mask while he screamed about how straws ruin the ocean.

I told you...NO MORE PLASTIC STRAWS! EVAR!!!

While the acting is less than stellar, I really liked the character of Lisa. She was probably the most and best developed (she had a backstory with an abusive ex-boyfriend) and I think she was the only smart character of the bunch. Very sympathetic, likeable, and I wondered why she was friends with any of these fools.

I actually have several places in my notes where I typed out ‘haha’ in capital letters, just so I wouldn’t forget them. The humor does fall flat a lot but it hits the mark more often than not. Some basic silliness, sneaking in lines from other terrible films, but I probably laughed the most during the ending credits. Lots of little jokes and asides in there, especially what were obviously things said by the cast and crew about the director, Madeline.

And someone correct me if I’m wrong, but did Andrea sing the camping song from Sleepaway Camp 2 when she was drunk in front of the fire? I need a fact check!

I thought the story itself was very original. Allowed for a lot of creativity and humor while presenting real environmental horrors that happen every day. And while I don’t condone killing off humanity to save the planet, I do understand why it might seem like a viable option. Particularly to a sentient tree who bears the brunt of human’s destructive nature.

Now, with that said, there are a lot of faults in this flick, too.

Aside from Lisa, none of the characters matter. They’re either irritating or just…there. Even the killer couldn’t make me care about his cause, one-liners and quips not withstanding. I couldn’t be bothered when characters died. I just wanted them to shut the fuck up (except for the two chicks lost in the woods looking for a party – that actually cracked me up, though I remained untroubled at their deaths).

Would you like a taste of my banana?

The pacing dragged ass about halfway, which most films do. But while I understand hyperbolic humor, if there’s no action in a scene after about ten seconds, the viewer starts to tune out. Only Tom Hanks can pull off a peeing-for-thirty-seconds scene. And don’t get me started on the expo-dumps and ravings about how shitty humanity is. The killer’s mask-themed jokes were funny at first but by the third one, I just wanted it to end.

Postproduction sound is not good. The dialogue synching was mediocre at best and completely distracting; lighting is pretty bad for the night scenes; continuity lacked; some gaping plot holes. If this cleansing the world of humanity ritual can only happen every 1000 years, why did Aarav mention that it happened last time 20 years prior? Aarav says he’s not the only one (wanting the ritual) but we never circle back around to that idea. How does having a banana allergy make a victim of a banana attack melt into green goo?

Head scratching indeed.

So while this film isn’t really that great, as far as indie horror goes, I have to say I enjoyed it more than I thought possible. Maybe next time I’ll try the drinking game with a few friends and see if it’s any better. Perhaps at the next Cinema Wasteland…? I am excited to see if Bathtub Shark Attack, the movie poster that actually caught my attention, will screen at the fall CW show. I’d like to see what else Nekro Shark Films and Madeline Deering have to offer us in the future.

 

2.5 hatchets (out of 5)

 

 

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The Dirty Sanchez (2013) and Leaf Blower Massacre (2012) Movie Reviews

I didn’t realize, until I started watching, that two of the shorts I received in my CHC tower of DVDs were written/produced/directed/etc., by the same folks - Cooney/Stephenson/DeQuattro as the various writers and T-Nasty Production. So I figured I might as well watch both and review them together.

I’m going into this with a sense of humor because how can these be anything but ridiculous? What I wasn’t expecting was the crazy short running time, particularly on the second one. I didn’t pull out a stop watch or anything but it couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes.

The Dirty Sanchez is about a masked psychopath running around killing random people with a pair of garden shears he stole from his first victim. When he’s not murdering folk, he’s eating canned dog food with his bare hands and raping women BEFORE shoving the shears up their hoo-hoos. The only call back on characters is an adorable couple planning a weekend of lovey dovey kissy bouncey times. At the end of the movie, they show back up in the killer’s sights.

*blank stare*

Seriously the best thing about this film is the cute bra and panty set worn by the pretty blonde. Otherwise it feels completely disjointed, a bunch of separate killings taped together with a common killer thrown in at the end because they forgot to include him in the original filming.

I just have three questions: Was the film quality total crap to make a grind house effect? Was the randomness of the victims supposed to make the killer scarier? Is it called Dirty Sanchez because the killer is a big fat slob who keeps yelling things in Spanish?

Monsters in the Closet (2021)

Even though this film’s trailer intrigued and excited me, I still had that uneasy feeling that comes with most indie films. It’s not often that these flicks succeed and I was worried my hopes would be dashed against the rocks of mediocrity. Fortunately, my psyche experienced only slight battery over the 88-minute running time.

Monsters in the Closet is about a recluse writer who suddenly dies. His estranged daughter goes to his house to do what all surviving family members do – rifle through his shit. Interrupted for only a moment by her father’s publishing house representative about getting their hands on his last work, Jasmin gets to her dad’s house to find a laptop with a recorded video, just for her.

Aside from not taking any responsibility for his aloofness and terrible parenting skills, he wants to tell her about his latest project. It’s going to be a HUGE success! You see, he found a seventeenth-century book on black magic that teaches the reader how to cast spells by writing stories about them. And once you read them aloud, the characters in each story come to life. Imagine, having a real vampire in your house!

Not sure that’s so great, but go on, Father…

What follows is her dad telling four different tales. And as you might guess, an element from each story comes to life in the house where Jasmin sits, ALONE, watching her father’s final video.

 I do love a good anthology film. And while the execution is lacking, overall I have to say I enjoyed it. It’s definitely a comedy/horror mash-up and each story is quite unique from all the others. Not saying the individual stories themselves were particularly original, but I’m glad they didn’t all blend together with shared tropes.

We’ve got zombies, a serial killer, a mad scientist, and just good, old-fashioned, isolated mania. While some of the acting is horrible, I gotta give props to John Paul Fedele and his ability to sell the idea of having sexual relations with an…assembled woman. His story was my favorite as it had me laughing the most often. And I wish I could remember the character names to shout out the actors, but the pair playing the couple who bought their first fixer-upper house in the second segment balanced hyperbole and believability so well! This was a close second place behind the mad scientist story as the humor hit home more often than not.

Something's missing. I can't quite put my finger on it...

The mixed bag of CGI did little to help. Some looked completely realistic, and others were obvious cheap computer programming. But it didn’t detract too much from the movie, making it easily forgettable.

Thankfully, the acting was better than I expected. The worst of it came in the weakest story, the third segment called “The One Percenters”. Cliché, obvious and terrible, and I’ve forgotten most of it. The performances in the main/wrap-around story were lackluster at best, awkward at worst, but not so bad as to make me want to shut it off. The good acting in the rest of the film absolutely made up for anything lacking elsewhere.

If you like to give indie films a try, despite that nagging feeling you might be setting yourself up for a long night of binge drinking, check out this one. I don’t think you’ll be sorry!

3.5 Hatchets (out of 5)

 

 

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Movie Review: SHHHH (2018)

I understand the appeal of horror and comedy mashing it up. I also understand the absolute HATRED of the mixed genre, because it’s either very good or fucking awful. I’m gonna have to go with the latter for my review of this flick.

SHHHH stars James Henderson as Harris, a struggling film maker in Los Angeles (how original and unexpected.) While trying to make ends meet with his job at a crappy video store—do those still exist?—he spends most of his spare time, when not making movies, with his mom at the theater. They love to go see films together, even lesbian vampires feeling each other up and licking each other’s nipples. And while they do have fun, there’s always some asshole ruining the experience: the food wrapper crinkler, the guy on his phone the whole time, the talkers, the super tall people who sit RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU despite all the other empty seats...it’s enough to drive Harris to murder.

Movie Review: 21st Century Serial Killer (2013)

Holy shit, folks. A Chemical Burn Entertainment film that DIDN’T make me want to vomit, take a cat-o-nine tails to my back before swimming through an Olympic-sized pool filled with lemon juice, or gouge out my own eyes? Did...did the apocalypse happen? Has everyone been raptured and I missed it?

I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE!!!

21stCentury Serial Killer is about Aaron, a milquetoast every guy who has a big dream -  to be a serial killer. Mostly it’s about being famous, being remembered. He tries to emulate some of the greats - Gacy, Bundy, Son of Sam - but there’s just one problem. He can’t even kill a fly, let alone a human being.

Eventually he meets a girl, settles down, and begins the routine life of a Post Office employee. While he still struggles with his murderous desires, a real serial killer is plaguing his town. With everything he’s studied over the years, Aaron tracks the killer before the cops catch him. Their chance meeting sets Aaron on the path to his dreams.

Movie Review: Hold Your Breath (2012)

Someone needs to improve this Invisalign design that allows the wearer to drink alcohol while they’re in…

Hold Your Breath opens with a flashback in 1956 where the preacher-turned-serial killer (huh?) is about to be executed. Dietrich Van Klaus (evil German…how original) blathers on with some bullshit exposition from the Bible, gouges out his own eye, kills a guard, then they finally strap him down and throw the switch. 

*yawn* Edward DeLacroix’s death was much worse. Just saying.

We move on to the present day where a group of twenty-somethings are getting together for a camping weekend. (and OMG the girls are like soooo annoying. Like HIIIIIII!!) On the way to the campsite they pass a graveyard and Jerry (the blonde annoying girl) freaks the fuck out trying to get everyone to hold their breaths as the car passes because OMG THAT’S WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO IF YOU DON’T WANT TO GET POSSESSED. GAAAAWD!

Book Review: My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf (2012)

Growing up in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, I heard a lot about serial killers and mass murderers. John Wayne Gacy and Richard Speck were from Chicago, and they were both executed for their horrendous crimes. We were also affected by another bizarre killer at that time. He wasn't from Chicago, but he often traveled there, and some of his victims were part of the Chicago gay scene. I am speaking of Milwaukee's cannibal killer, Jeffrey Dahmer.

Dahmer was a strange case. When an intended victim escaped and led police to his apartment, what was discovered was a nightmare that Wes Craven couldn't imagine. A refrigerator full of human remains was only the tip of the iceberg. Dahmer had a long and unnerving history. My Friend Dahmer dips into the early part, up until his first killing. How do we know it's accurate? It's written by one of his high school friends.

Movie Review: The Mutilator (1984, Blu-ray)

Now that the busy season of the hubby’s business is over and October has wrapped up, I can get back to my reviews. And I’m excited to jump back in with a film from the most tubular of decades - the 80s!

The Mutilator (original title Fall Break) begins with the most unfortunate of events. Little Ed Jr. decides that the best birthday present he can give his father is to clean all his dad’s guns. We’ve all been there. Checking down the sight of a rifle and pulling the trigger to make sure everything’s clean and accidentally killing our moms, amirite?

Needless to say, Ed Sr.’s cheese slides a little off his cracker when he comes home to find his wife dead and his spawn responsible. 

Years later, Ed is in college and the relationship with his father is basically nonexistent. Until now. He wants Ed to close up the beach condo for the winter. And how convenient because Ed and his friends are on fall break (ahhh…now the original title makes more sense!) and have nothing to do. So why not help close up the place while enjoying time at the beach?

Because Ed’s dad is a fucking nut job and wants them all dead!! Particularly Junior, of whom he dreams about killing all the time.

The Laughing Mask (2014) Movie Review

While I’m waiting on my next package of goodies, I was lucky enough to be sent the link to an on-line screener (and unlucky to receive another one but that’ll have to be someone else’s problem because SOOOO BAAAADDD). In the long standing tradition of masked serial killers, Michael Aguiar gives us The Laughing Mask.

Jake Johnson’s wife is murdered and daughter kidnapped by the crazed serial killer, The Laughing Mask. Despite all his efforts to find the mad man, Jake comes up with a deadly plan: he’ll write a book about the killer and call him out on national television for being a pussy coward. THAT’LL bring the Mask to Jake for sure and then he can get his revenge.

Or then again, maybe it’ll just unleash The Laughing Mask’s wrath onto everyone else that Jake cares about. Like the plucky hard ass cop, Kate O’Malley. Or perhaps his agent, Mark. You know, in-between dishing out vigilante justice, too.

Umm….I’m confused.

Let’s deal with some of the bad first.

The acting, needless to say, is pretty rough. I’ve definitely seen worse but not by much. Most everyone seems rather stiff and unsure of themselves. Or they’re trying to hard to emote and it throws off the flow. The characters they play are pretty cliche so that doesn’t help matters. And the director used his twin daughters to play two different characters in the movie. Made for some very confusing double takes throughout the film.

Movie Review: Tenderness of the Wolves (1973)

Based on the true story…ugh, I hate that phrase. HOWEVER, after doing a little research on Fritz Haarmann, I have to say this movie depicts many truths of his life. Though he originally committed his crimes before and after WWI, this flick moved the timeline up to just after WWII because of Nazis or something. 

I don’t know.

Tenderness of the Wolves is a German film from 1973, written by and starring Kurt Raab in the title role. Fritz Haarmann is a well known criminal in the police community. Things like sex offenses, theft, fraud, assault, seduction of minors, homosexuality (which was a crime in Germany until 1994) all kept him on der kommisar’s radar for years. But since the country was in such a rough state after the war, the polizei need all the help they can get and hire Fritz to be a narc.

This actually works out for Fritz very well because by informing on OTHER people, he keeps the police attentions off his own crimes of theft, fraud, and murder. Fritz likes to lure young boys and men back to his apartment, ply them with food and drink, then BITE OUT THEIR FUCKING THROATS IN THE THROES OF PASSION AND ECSTASY. Afterward he chopped them up and either tossed their remains in a local river or sold the flesh as pork or horse meat to his friends.

Wha…..???

Movie Review: "Sheriff of Contention" (2010; Rock Wayne Org./High Frontier Vent./Lionsgate)

...from studio to studio...from distribution company to distribution company...they say that for every great film script, pull out from the endless sea of extensive literary meanderings & cinematic hopefuls, and given it's due, there are at least two dozen or so others...some good, most bad...left to languish, lost and unnoticed. Occasionally, the cinematic powers-that-be, do take a gamble on a forlorn concept...one of those thought lost and discarded scripts, which most have turned their discriminant nose up at...save for that rare and singular moment of unconvention, who keenly eyes a laid-aside script of potential...something which elicits a thought-provoking 'hmmm, that's interesting'. A story interesting enough to warrant engaging, even in the midst of what might be considered muddled thespian in performance, and untried in direction & editing. Such might well have been the case, with the respectably thrilling and intriguing 2010 old-westerner, "Sheriff of Contention", which sat collecting dust on a shelf...that is, until Liongate, of all surprising distributors, recently saw fit to shed an indiscriminate and opportunist spotlight on the little film...to the delight of us devotees of the type of period Wild West melodramas, which in this case, unconventionally assume contemporary conventions, albeit on a forgiveably less-than perfect level of presentation...

...Sheriff Peavy is in the throes of almost overwhelming pressure; the people, whom he serves in the dusty frontier town of Contention City, have expressed a growing loss of faith in his abilities, saying that he is 'used up and burnt out'. The sheriff's gun-happy right hand man, Deputy Conley, has made no secret of his ambitions, in possibly replacing the sheriff, in view of his seemingly diminished stature...and even the town's mayor himself has expressed and encouraged such a prospective changing of hands. And in the midst of such personal turmoil, the sheriff...as well as the townspeople...are horrified and perplexed at a ever-increasing series of heinous and ruthless killings, which have targeted the town's womenfolk...

Movie Review: Everyone Must Die (2012)

If the title of this movie refers to those responsible for its creation, then yes, I wholeheartedly concur (those people being mostly Steve Rudzinski and Derek Rothermund, co-writers, with Steve also directing, and both of them acting).

In EMD, a seemingly unkillable killer is hacking and slashing his (or her) way across the country. When he (or she) kills Kyle's sister, Kyle demands satisfaction. When the police prove less than helpful, and hardly intelligible, Kyle vows to catch this killer on his own. Even though his sister's boyfriend ran over the psycho’s face with a lawn mower, Kyle just knows the killing isn't over.

With a conveniently helpful exposition scene, the local news reporter explains that the high body count tallying up across the country is the dirty work of the same person who killed Kyle's sister. And this nut job will keep killing even if he (or she) has been chopped into hamburger.

Movie Review: Piranha-man Vs. Werewolf-man: Howl of the Piranha

This movie...I just can't...seriously, I lost enough IQ points watching this movie that it's difficult to...I'm at a loss...what a stupid poopy flick.

Our story centers around Lexi Glass (oy vey), a news reporter that first broke a terrifying story: two blonde women have been savagely murdered. Despite the fact that two does NOT make a pattern, she reports the women as victims of a serial killer and his "Baby Doll Murders". Never mind that's the most ridiculous name, considering the women aren't babies or dolls or look like either nor are babies and dolls left at the scenes. The witnesses she interviews on camera claim they heard howling, like a large dog or wolf, near the crime scenes.

Lexi’s boss accuses her of sensationalism (from a news reporter? The hell you say!) and gives the story to Dirty Diane. Can you guess why she has that nickname? *winkwink* Lexi is pissed but continues to follow the story and look for clues. During all of this, Lexi's dreams are quite disturbing: she is at each of crime scene and witnesses some kind of wolfman attacking the women. In between those gruesome visuals, she makes out with some random guy in the woods.

After a bunch of other people are murdered (not all perky blondes, by the way), Diane dons a blonde wig to bait the killer. When it works really really well, Lexi is there to report. Too bad the killer is still around because her cameraman is the next victim while Lexi passes out. In her unconscious state (which I realized it was after the back story is thrown up all over us), a man in a wrestler's mask explains her origins. Her father didn't die in a place crash! Her mother didn't die while birthing her! Her whole life has been a lie!

Disturbing Documentary "Zero Killed" Coming From Cult Epics!

Controversial Documentary Film about the Most discussed Topic in the News!

ZERO KILLED

Premieres on DVD: July 23, 2013

Los Angeles, CA (July 2013.) If someone murdered a person you love, how would you feel about it? Are soldiers murderers? Should torture be legalized? How to define good and evil? Since 1996 film director Michal Kosakowski has been asking people with different backgrounds about their murder fantasies and staged these as short films.

The Awards winning film ‘Zero Killed’ is an unconventional hybrid of feature film and documentary, that makes viewers question their personal and social positions concerning ethical and moral values and taboos. This candid confessional of the taboo criminal fantasies, which exist in the minds of normal people is shocking. Fictional crime stories may flood today’s cinemas, but this copulation of fictional crimes challenges us all to look more deeply into the mirror, or more closely at our neighbor. Is evil inside all of us?

Movie Review: Escapee (2012, Blu-ray)

Directed by Campion Murphy

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

There is a very real possibility that there may be regular visitors to this Web site who have never seen a horror film. Rising to the occasion is Escapee, a horror film that by intent and design is not that scary for those who may purchase or rent the DVD or Blu-Ray with its foreboding and ominous graphics (“Evil Has Been Unleashed”) that it won't be too upsetting for their fragile sensibilities.

While on a an observational trip to a high security prison for the criminally insane – in this case, a gaggle of young, obnoxious girls forever on their cell phones on who's zoomin' who – psychology student Abby Jones (Christine Evangelista) has an unpleasant encounter with serial killer – they CALL HIM a serial killer in the press materials, but we only see him kill one person, his girlfriend, off-screen in the film's prologue, Harmon Porter (Dominic Purcell). Emerging none the worse for wear, Abby retires home to study with two gal pals. It's a dark and stormy night, the power comes on and off, Harmon escapes from the sanitarium and starts to pick off the tiny cast – all of it sounding more interesting than it is.

Movie Review: The Pig Farm (2011)

Call it morbid obsession or just a keen interest in true crime, as a Canadian citizen I’ve been waiting a long time to see a documentary about Canada’s most infamous and established serial killer.

The first documentary ever to be made on notorious Canadian pig farmer/serial killer Robert “Willie” Pickton, The Pig Farm is as informative as it is downright disturbing. Featuring re-enactments of the events surrounding Pickton’s arrest, and heart-wrenching interviews with former employees of his farm and a few of the surviving women who had first-hand encounters with him, The Pig Farm, like Pickton himself, lures you in and binds you to your seat for what will likely be the most unsettling docu-viewing experience of a lifetime.

Buy The Pig Farm on DVD

Movie Review: A Horrible Way to Die (2011)

The psycho-thriller has been really pretty hit and miss these days. There are some solid titles out there such as Bereavement and Simon Rumley's excellent Red White and Blue. Unfortunately, for every Red White and Blue you get a much more of the routine camcorder tripe. Director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barret attempt to be among the latter with the downbeat horror feature, A Horrible Way to Die.

Following a suitably spine-chilling opening sequence, A Horrible Way to Die goes on to introduce the main characters while their participating in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The lead character, Sarah (Amy Seimetz) is a broken-down and scarred addict, looking for answers that don't come at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. She meets a Kevin (Joe Swanberg) at one of her meetings and soon become fast friends.

Movie Review: Dahmer vs. Gacy (2011)

Being the resident forensic psychologist (not kidding) over here at the Cheese, I was eminently qualified to review this film. Now, we have to realize that I’m still in school and, therefore, still learning this stuff but I have a fascination with serial sexual murderers. Like Billy the Kid and Jesse James were intriguing in the Old West, serial killers are our new aberrant fascinations. Morbid, lacking in any subtlety… the public has their ear to the ground just waiting to hear of the exploits of a new serial killer. We should probably give our serial killer definition before moving on: a murderer who kills a minimum of three people with a cooling off period between each kill. This is different from, say, a mass murderer (like those Colombine freaks who do it all on one spot) or spree killer (like Richard Speck who travels and kills one after the other). What we are dealing with here, though, is Ford Austin’s Dahmer vs. Gacy. He gets some of it right, some of it wrong and, most of all, the film is a lot of fun. Except for my giant pet peeve. A clown-faced, well-marbled, morbidly obese pet peeve. We’ll get to that.

Buy Dahmer Vs. Gacy on DVD or Dahmer vs. Gacy on VOD!

Movie Review: Cropsey (2009)

Childhood legends are created to terrify us into being good. There's the Boogeyman, the stranger with the lost dog and a pocket full of candy, and even Santa Claus. On Staten Island in New York, there was the legend of Cropsey. Cropsey was supposedly a mental patient who escaped a place called Willowbrook and murdered children in the night. The filmmakers recall hearing all of that when they were young, and they talk to a few people about it. That's about the first ten minutes, and then they go on to something else that's not really related, but they try to connect it. Most of the documentary has nothing to do with this legend, which did nothing less than annoy the bejesus out of me for the entirety of the film.

Buy Cropsey on DVD