Somewhere at the intersection of Don’t F**k With Cats and Megan Is Missing is Simon Rumley’s Crushed, which starts as an eye-opening introduction to the world of ‘crush’ fetish videos (don’t Google it) before descending into even darker territory. Yes, even darker than a woman in stockings and kinky boots smushing a kitten to death.
Traumatised after a friend’s brother shows her one of said crush videos, 10-year-old Olivia (Margaux Dietrich) is horrified when her own dear kitty disappears. Her vicar dad Daniel (Steve Oram) tries to placate his daughter with talk of God, but she won’t wait for divine intervention while some woman smushes little Missy under her bootheel. Olivia’s investigation takes her onto the streets of Bangkok (not as dramatic as it sounds – she does live there) and the doorstep of opportunistic Stanley (Christian Ferriera). Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than a woman literally pulping kittens to death, here comes an American paedophile (Jonathan Samson), eager to inspect his purchase.
‘Crushed’ is certainly one way to describe the feeling which accompanies Rumley’s latest work of soul-stomping misery. A feature-length version of his ABCs of Death segment P is for Pressure, it’s a typically nihilistic, stress-inducing thriller from the Red, White & Blue director. Along the way, Rumley’s screenplay interrogates themes of faith, familial resilience and trauma, testing the convictions of Father Daniel under the worst of circumstances, while also serving as Olivia’s awakening as to the world’s innocence-pulverising cruelty. It’s ostensibly a black comedy, but whether it succeeds or not depends on how much amusement you derive from the plight of a vicar trying to keep the faith in the face of kitty-squishing and child abduction.
Crushed eventually reaches a plateau from where it can’t really get much darker, struggling beneath the weight of its more existential questions. While it can’t sustain that initial feeling of discomfort and dread for long, the quiet aftermath is almost as bad, as though Rumley has pulled back the curtain on a world of hurt and pain that no-one needed or wanted to see. Sure, it keeps its worst imagery obscured, but what isn’t seen is harrowing enough that the mental picture show will find a way in regardless.
The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no putting it back, no matter how hard you squash it down.
CRUSHED premiered at UK FrightFest on August 23, 2025.
