Chris Egan is just awful in this film. Emma Lung is a good actress, but her character is horribly underwritten. The twists are just ridiculous, the dialog is cringe-worthy and the supporting characters are pointless.This movie is a steaming pile of ass. A decent soundtrack is the one redeeming feature, but even that can't make up for the fact that this movie is worse than Gonorrhoea. What happened to Australian cinema? Why is the main character American? How did someone think that this was a good idea? I genuinely enjoyed the room more than this. If you want to watch something better, choose any film at random. It would be hard to pick something worse.

gets more and more preposterous as it goes along. I expected great things from Emma Lung when I saw her first a few years back in Peaches (with Hugo Weaving). She shows the same promise here, albeit with a poorly underwritten role; the fact that she fills out a bikini quite nicely doesn't hurt, either. In fact, both young leads (Chris Egan plays Julian, her reluctant paramour) do the best they can with the material, but the fault here lies with the story and script. Julian is an American kick-boxing up-and-comer, studying architecture at college in Australia. Strapped for cash, he accepts a short-term job as a solo house-sitter in a luxurious gated home, and then things start getting weird when the owner's niece Anna (Ms. Lung) starts sneaking in at all times of the day, in various states of undress, with an ever-present "come hither" look in her eyes. Alas, at this point all starts going downhill, with things becoming more and more far-fetched every time Julian awakens from another one of his "dreams". If you're a fan of either Mr. Egan or Ms. Lung, watch this one at your own peril. Otherwise, save yourself the time and effort, and throw The Exorcist into your player for the umpteenth time. You've been warned...

Crush brings a war hammer to the table when it comes to the idea of 'hitting every single part of the youth demographic'. It's a thriller featuring tae kwon do championships, house sitting in a Panic Room mansion, a sexy mystery girl and a brand new rockin' song on the soundtrack in every second scene. The actors are young and glamorous and so is the Perth scenery. The trouble is that all of this rollicking-in-theory content is at the service of a story and film-making which continually nudge at the borders of dumbness, and which ultimately make a leap right into its crazy heart.Julian (Chris Egan) can no longer compete in his beloved tae kwon do on his USA home turf after a minor underage drinking scandal, so now he has to slum it in Australia while studying architecture. With his next big tourney approaching, Julian figures he'll get a bit of R&R in while carrying out his new temp job of housesitting the mansion of a rich family who are about to holiday in Paris. The dad has installed a Sliver-like system of security cameras throughout the house, and warns Julian that his niece might drop over while the family's away to use the mansion's swimming pool.Before you can say "Fatal Attraction", Anna (Emma Lung) materialises by the swimming pool in a red bikini. She is well sultry, and about five minutes later Julian is already having understandable fantasies of her licking his face. This immediately creates a ton of problems – he's already got a girlfriend (Brooke Harmon), plus Anna apparently has keys to the otherwise secure house, plus Julian is supposed to be taking it easy before the big fight.Development in these thrillers about obsession needs to be craftily ratcheted up by degrees in order to keep things believable. Crush is very shaky in this respect, moving alternately in extreme leaps or underwhelming shuffles. Anna's behaviour as she hangs around the house is pretty inscrutable. One scene begins with the decent threat of the lights suddenly going out. It ends with Julian 'rescuing' his girlfriend from a slightly regurgitating toilet.Julian frequently has flashbacks to scenes which occurred just five seconds earlier, another omen of bad film-making. He is seen with his university friends in authentically Australian campus computer labs, but his two mates are scripted and acted far more like American college frat boys than Australians, even though they occasionally say "mate". Combined with Julian's nationality being American, this feels like further slight desperation to play to the international market, which I wouldn't mind if this film was better.Unfortunately, at the moment of potential maximum intrigue concerning Anna's origins, a revelation occurs whose proportions are so ludicrous that any viewer remotely cynical at this point (which I believe will be the majority of viewers) will topple completely offside. I then experienced the film's conclusion as dumb and embarrassing.Chris Egan does okay as Julian, and Emma Lung wrings a few good moments out of an impossible, ridiculously scripted part as Anna. The film's glamour, high production values and unpaid-off hints of intrigue actually make it pretty easy to watch, even through some overbearing faults and naffness, but the finale is irredeemable. I think the real reason Crush invites derision is that it goes all out to be a rousing cross-market genre piece, yet for all its heavy-handedness, doesn't pull it off, and ends up prompting jokey cynicism instead.

For those of us who HAVE seen this film, I think we all know that the comments from "Craig" are more based on a personal vendetta to condemn this film rather than deconstruct it in an analytical and professional manner.For a start, you can not go past the brilliant cast employed by Nexus. Whilst Chris may have started his career on Home and Away that is in no way a reason for him "apparently" having NO acting skills whatsoever. Many Home and Away actors have made in big in Hollywood and Chris is one of them (if none of you have seen Kings yet, you're sorely missing out). On top of that, you've got Emma Lung who has been in 48 Shades of Brown, Cooks and Entourage(USA) as well as Jenna Lind, one of Australia's greatest young talents who has this year alone been on Underbelly and 30 Seconds(Foxtel).To add to this, the filming conducted by the amazing crew in Perth brings a touch of professionalism to the production that you rarely see in other Australian films (i.e Wolf Creek, Prey etc). The colors, camera movement and shot types are impeccably orchestrated right to the very end, similar to the American horror film you would normally encounter at the box office.Finally, the overall narrative of the film is unlike anything you would have, or will find in Australian cinemas this year. Crush keeps you guessing right to the very end of the film about what is going to happen to our main characters and doesn't desensitize us by trying to scare us every two seconds. This is probably why "Craig from Canada" refers to the film's pacing as "terrible". Frankly, I would much rather watch a horror film which keeps me on the edge of me seat with suspense like the old classics of the 1970s and 80s rather than have my sense constantly bombarded with violence and manipulating scenes.All in all, this is a brilliant effort by a first time director and production company and not only does it deserve a chance, it deserves a better reception than the one it is receiving from people who are more interested in spreading vicious rumours than actual reviews.