Crushed Review (Frightfest 2025)
Extremist drama Crushed sets evil perversions upon theistic resolve and pulverises the savaged remains with contemptuous irony.
Wholesome pastor Father Daniel lives with his wife Pimpranan and his young daughter Olivia in Thailand. When Olivia is subjected to a grotesque kitten snuff video, the family is dragged into a harrowing abyss of depravity and retribution.
Struggling to reconcile Christian forgiveness with acts of pure evil, Father Daniel clings to blind faith in a deity that he believes is testing him. When moral judgment is removed from his control, he is forced to choose between heavenly accord and hellish reprisal.
Director Simon Rumley revisits the ultra-dark realism of Red White and Blue with a brutal film that challenges the platitudes of contemporary cinema and somersaults onto the delicate ice of acceptability. A heinous car smash of a movie, Crushed is shocking, disturbing, and dangerous.
In less seasoned hands, the themes explored could easily have been reduced to a distasteful puree of undigestible exploitation. However, Rumley’s determination to commandeer cinema as a reaction chamber for his fearless imagination and mischievous juxtapositions is both vital and riveting.
Determined to treat the audience as adults, he presents his twisted tale of faith, extreme fetishism, and fucked up life choices with the courageous stoicism that valuable art can, and should, dredge the soul to make us feel something. If he intended to fire a warning shot into the the banal belly of mainstream cinema with this incendiary drama, he’s ended up splattering its guts on the ceiling.
Recalling the insurmountable suffering of Katrin Gebbe’s depressive classic, Nothing Bad Can Happen, and the unflinching nonchalance of Justin Kurzel’s devastating Snowtown, Rumley doesn’t care how many cans of worms he cracks open to scrutinise belief systems and trigger sensibilities.
Shot with sombre clarity, featuring music from The The’s Matt Johnson, Crushed is a gruelling watch that fascinates like a one-sided street fight. Volatile but never voyeuristic, the film leaves horrific gaps in its structure and forces the viewer to fill them in.
From trampled turtles to ripped out fingernails and teeth, Rumley’s relentless tour of the inhuman condition will find a way to crawl under some part of your skin and gestate tumours of trauma. Astonishingly, there are elements of humour in Crushed, but they are so fucking dark that it’s like hunting the black dog of depression in a coal seam.
Those sensitive to animal violence should give Crushed the widest of births, as the central premise alone is truly sinister. Quite what internet wierdos get out of watching cute creatures getting squished by high heels is utterly beyond me, but that doesn’t stop Mr Rumley from rummaging around in the garbage cans of humanity and presenting a show and tell of his grimiest findings.
As ever, Rumley’s film is beautifully made and throbbing with industry and indignation. His use of split-screen dynamics during core conversations is breathtaking in its style and simplicity. The acting is disarmingly naturalistic with an intimacy and accuracy that keep the movie grounded as it grinds out annihilatory character arcs.
A cunning hammer blow of feel-bad foulness, Crushed will leave you exactly that.
★★★★
English Premiere At FrightFest on 23rd August/ Steve Oram, Nattapohn Rawddon, Margaux Dietrich, Sahajak Boonthanakit / Dir: Simon Rumley / tbc / Film Seekers
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