“TRUTH IS A SPECTRE THAT SCARES MANY.” Discussing the horror documentary.

What constitutes a horror documentary? Is it a documentary about a horror film or television series, or, is it a documentary that’s content is horror based? I believe it’s the latter, being that the subject matter of the documentary is rooted within the horror genre. It could really be about anything that is interpreted as frightening or scary. Urban myths, historical content or even the human condition. Sometimes a really great horror documentary can be every bit as good as a really good horror movie. The field of possible topics is a vast and almost boundless space. I have chosen a small collective of films that I consider to be both imposing and intriguing. 

Cropsey (2009): I honestly had never heard of this urban legend prior to watching this documentary and it’s a pretty terrifying tale. The legend of Cropsey was based in Staten Island, New York. Local kids grew up hearing about the murderer who would and could kidnap them, escaping via the underground tunnel system that led to the local abandoned sanitarium and they’d never be seen alive again.  Kinda sounds like a horror movie conception anyway, right? It was always known to be a story formulated by locals to keep kids in line. Except in 1987, that myth evolved into real life when a man named Andre Rand was revealed to be responsible for the murder of a young girl Jennifer Schweiger after a 35-day search had led to the discovery of her body. And here is where the story becomes even more inconceivable, Andre Rand had worked as a janitor at the notorious Willowbrook State School; an institution for children with intellectual disabilities, during the 1970s. The school wasn’t officially closed until 1987 and the public learned of the atrocities that had occurred there over the years. Aside from abuse and corporal punishment, children had been subjected to an experiment that became known as one of the most unethical ‘medical’ experimentations in the U.S. Healthy kids were injected with Hepatitis in the name of research. When Rand was found he had been living at a campsite on the grounds of the abandoned school.  

The documentary is by Joshua Zeman (The Killing Season and Killer Legends) and Barbara Brancaccio. Both filmmakers grew up on Staten Island and writer Zeman, wanted to explore the mythology behind the tales of ‘the boogeyman’ he had been terrified of since his childhood, and the link to Andre Rand the man found guilty of Jennifer Schweiger’s murder and presumed responsible for the disappearance of several other kids. This documentary isn’t the stock standard type of presentation. It’s dramatic, moody and delivered with real horror-film, eerie flare. There are the typical Zeman dramatizations but overall, it’s a solid film and thoroughly fascinating.

Killer Legends (2014): Another Joshua Zeman film, Killer Legends explores and unmasks the terrifying reality behind several urban myths and their connections to actual crimes. The legends they address are the Hookman; the man with a hook on his hand who murdered teens in Lovers Lane, the Candyman; the man who poisoned candy and killed his own son, the Babysitter and the Man Upstairs; the “call is coming from inside the house” myth and, the Killer Clown; clowns trying to lure children into vans in varying locations. The documentary does not look to uncover new ground in an attempt to help solve crimes, it simply delves into their origins and how they came to be associated with specific cases. Zemen and his partner Rachel Mills interview locals in the neighbourhoods and showcases the changes made over time to these locations.

The link of the “Hookman” legend to the Texarkana Murders was made infamous in the film The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976). In Texarkana, Texas teenagers that dared to go ‘parking’ in Lovers Lane after dark were being brutally murdered by a masked assailant, a case that is still unsolved. For the Candyman, Zeman and Mills head to Houston, Texas to look at Ronald Clark O’Bryan, the man convicted of poisoning his 8-year-old son with cyanide-laced pixie sticks, for the insurance money. They examine the case of Janett Christman, a teenager raped and murdered while babysitting in Columbia, Missouri in 1950. The man believed to be responsible for the crime had been convicted of a similar crime and executed, however, Zeman and Mills suggest the possibility of another perpetrator who had been infatuated with Christman. And finally, the killer clown is associated with the notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy, a man convicted of torturing and killing 33 young men and boys in Chicago. This documentary is somewhat amplified for dramatic effect, but generally, it’s a unique and interesting insight into some disturbing yet intriguing contemporary American lore. 

Beware the Slenderman (2016): Anyone that’s familiar with the ‘Slenderman’ mythology, would probably also have some knowledge of the shocking crime that was had been inspired (change this) by the web-based meme turned urban nightmare. For those who aren’t aware of the story: Slenderman is an animated faceless and ghoulish figure created by Eric Knudsen in 2009 and first appeared on the website somethingawful.com, in a forum thread titled “Create Paranormal Images.” From there he appeared on varying other sites and evolved with fan fiction giving him a twisted purpose; to murder and compel others to murder. 

In 2014 two 12-year-old girls brutally stabbed their friend, impelled by the Slenderman. The documentary is quite confronting and astounding. Documentarian Irene Taylor Brodsky explores the relationships of the girls, the catastrophic consequences of their actions and the association of blame that connects this crime to a media-based entity. The film also looks at the subject of Schizophrenia and how an undiagnosed disorder bared an impact under these circumstances. As I mentioned, this film is extremely eye-opening and also deeply heart-breaking at times, with the focus on how and why a crime like this came to be committed. A horror film entitled Slenderman (2018) was based on the internet phenomenon but not the case.

Demon House (2019): Paranormal Investigator and documentarian Zak Bagans (Ghost Adventures) wanted to uncover the ‘truth’ about one of America’s most infamous haunted houses. In 2011, Latoya Ammons moved into a house in Gary, Indiana with her mother and three children. Within days of moving into the residence, the family began to witness paranormal activity that escalated into physical assaults including Ammons’12-year-old daughter levitating on her bed and, the youngest son (apparently) appearing to be momentarily possessed. Ammons contacted her doctor who visited the home and alerted the police to contact the Department of Child Services. After some time, the family contacted a priest to perform an exorcism and after witnessing what he believed to be demonic torment, he performed multiple exorcisms, one of which was conducted on Latoya Ammons. The family moved from the home in 2012 and their apparent horrors were reported to have stopped. Bagans purchased the house in 2014.

Whether you’re a believer or a sceptic, this film is extremely engrossing. It’s chock-full of haunted-house goodness and makes for a very convincing argument in the Ammons family’s favour. There are some extremely cringe-worthy ‘reenactments’ that the viewer should definitely overlook but, the eerie moments captured on film make it really difficult to disparage what you are actually witnessing. There are moments that will have you scratching your head with this film. If you choose to believe what you are seeing then you will in fact believe that this house was where some very dark and baffling events occurred. At the very least it is an extremely entertaining film that waivers between documentary and horror fable. Bagans had the ‘diabolic’ residence demolished in 2016 (the demolition is included in the documentary).