This disturbing upcoming horror film left me sick to my stomach

Every now and again, you watch a film that makes your blood run cold and your stomach turn.

For horror fans in the UK, they’re likely to find such a flick at FrightFest, taking place in 2025 at London’s Odeon Luxe.

In years gone by, the film festival has screened disturbing delights such as Audition, Oldboy, Calvaire, Eden Lake, and The Sadness, among many others.

Joining their ranks from this year’s programme is Crushed, the latest chilling offering from Simon Rumley, best known for his nerve-shredding hit Red, White, and Blue, and a segment in horror anthology ABCs of Death.

I went into his new film knowing very little about it, and left feeling like my heart had been ripped out and my soul shattered.

Crushed follows Father Daniel (Steve Oram), who leads a small procession in Thailand. He lives with his wife Pimpranan (Ting Sue) and their 10-year-old daughter Olivia (Margaux Dietrich), practising their beliefs and spending quality time with friends.

One night, Olivia is left traumatised when Marcus (Nadech Chatwin), the son of Daniel’s fellow clergyman Stephen (Kevin Lea Davis), shows the youngster a horrific video of animal cruelty.

Soon after her cat, Missy, vanishes, prompting the family to search for the missing feline. But Daniel and Pimpranan soon find themselves in every parent’s worst nightmare when, after a day of searching for Missy, Olivia doesn’t return home.

Crushed wastes no time plunging viewers into the unflinching depravity that pulses through the veins of the film, introducing us to the seedy underground world of a crushing operation, which sees women in lingerie crush animals requested by clients who then pay top dollar for the footage.

It is one of these videos that Olivia is shown, though torture is kept hidden from the audience, leaving us with only the chilling reactions of those onscreen watching and quick glimpses of a frail kitten and a woman’s heeled foot.

Much of the horror of Crushed comes from what the audience doesn’t see, leaving their imagination to barrel towards dark conclusions. Olivia is held hostage by opportunistic criminal Stanley (Christian Ferriera), involved in the crushing operation, who stumbled upon Olivia in his home and plans to sell her.

He sets up a meeting with a mysterious local pedophile interested in buying Olivia, but turns down the deal when he becomes uncomfortable with his motives. It leads the man to procure a far younger child, with a chilling scene seeing him lead the boy into a room and close the door.

While Crushed does not show any scenes of sexual abuse towards children, the implication is there, and it is enough to make any viewer’s stomach flip and hairs stand on end.

I like to think I am quite a steely horror fan, but I was left in tears by just a two-minute-long scene of a mother’s blood-curdling wail at losing her child, overwhelmed by the palpable sense of dread and cruelty that is relentless throughout Crushed.

While the events of Crushed are entirely fictional, it shines a light on a very real and gut-wrenching aspect of sex tourism in Thailand that involves the trafficking and abuse of children for paying customers across the globe.

Visually, the film channels aspects of A Serbian Film, also featured at this year’s festival, as well as found footage flicks Lake Mungo and Megan Is Missing. It feels grimy and tense throughout, and rarely is there any sense of relief; instead, it ratchets up the tension until it becomes unbearable by Crushed’s brutal final act.

Split scenes are utilised with devastating effects to show the reactions of separate characters during nail-biting conversations, particularly in one heartbreaking scene in which Pimpranan comes face-to-face with the monster that took her daughter.

Sightseers’ Steve Oram delivers a powerhouse performance as Daniel, who blindly believes ‘God will help us’ at the beginning of his journey, before devastatingly having his faith put to the test by the horrors of Olivia’s ordeal.

Ting Sue is similarly commanding as Pimpranan, who becomes increasingly frustrated by Daniel’s blind faith and disillusioned with law enforcement as she calls for the harshest punishment available for Stanley, eventually taking matters into her own hands.

Crushed is unlike any other horror film you will see this year. As soon as you think it cannot become any more traumatising, Rumley punches you in the gut with another harrowing scene of evil.

Not for the faint-hearted, Crushed is a disturbingly savage tale of morality, revenge, and faith that will push the boundaries of even the most hardened horror fan.

Crushed had its English premiere at FrightFest 2025 on August 23.

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