Customer Reviews

Crush [VHS]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Crush; The story of a girl obsessed with a 28 year old newspaper editor who is renting a house above the garage in Seattle. Alicia Silverstone plays Adrian who can't help but be in love with Nick (Cary Elwes). Nick's girlfriend/co-worker Amy (played wonderfully by Jennifer Rubin) feels that Adrian is too attached to Nick. At first Nick is unaware of the crush but when Adrian hurts her best friend;Cheyenne (Amber Benson) and attempts to kill Amy buy locking her in a dark room with a sudden bee infestation he finally figures out that something has to be done. Great movie. Now the DVD: Has only an INCOMPLETE credits list for 3 of the stars and a bunch of trailers FOR OTHER movies. The sound is great, as is the picture.

As a die hard Alicia Silverstone fanatic, I bought 'The Crush' with high hopes. Although harrassed by the critics, a shocking discovery was placed on my hands: it's an excellent movie. Sexual obsession and childish innocence form as one, creating Darian (Silverstone). Nick (Elwes), realizing the harm headed his way when Darian reveals her "crush", gets caught up in a violent swirl of events that lead to the ultimate finale in which Silverstone's acting abilities shine through. 'The Crush' was no waste of cash and the movie cover is to DIE for! Those glasses...those pouting lips...that evil glare. For true excitement, rent 'The Crush' today.

Some films can easily be described as "x meets y." These usually aren't very good films. In this case, the movie is a blend of Lolita and Fatal Attraction. Nick Elliott (Cary Elwes) is an investigative journalist new in town who needs a place to stay and work, so he ends up renting the guest room of a fairly well-off family in the suburbs. He catches the eye of Adrian (Alicia Silverstone), their gifted fourteen year-old daughter. Her "crush" on Nick develops at a breakneck pace. She pesters him constantly, in person and on the phone, tries to seduce him when they're alone, and becomes insanely jealous of anyone else he spends time with, particularly a female photographer he's currently working with.

Unless you didn't watch any movies in the last twenty years, you can probably see where it's going. As far as thrillers go, Fatal Attraction is probably the most imitated. Malicious, Swimfan, if you've seen any of these you won't be surprised by The Crush. There's a lot of sub par acting from people capable of much better, and incredibly cheesy writing. The only reason to watch this film would be to see Silverstone being sexy, although seeing Elwes slug her and send her flying across the room almost makes it all worthwhile.

The DVD contains trailers and cast bios.

Nick Eliot has everything going for him. A new job and a new place to live: the guest house of the upperclass Forrester family: dad; Cliff, mom; Liv and 14 year-old-daughter; Adrian. Everything is perfect. But that's about to end very soon.

When Nick meets Adrian, it was love at first sight. For her anyway. She gives him gifts and tries to seduce him. He is obviously clueless to her obsession.

One night at a party of the Forrester's, Nick drives Adrian out to a lighthouse where she kisses him. He suddenly realizes that this can't happen and she's had a "thing" for him all along.

Nick gets a job at Pique magazine: a semi-tabloid. He meets Amy Maddik there, a photographer for the mag. They become an item. This becomes a dangrous problem to Adrian, who has been seemingly rejected by Nick.

After he finds out that Adrian has broken into his house, scratched the word "(beep)sucker" onto his car and snoops around the place, Nick decides to leave. That doesn't mean he can.

Adrian's friend, Cheyenne knows about Adrian's bad side. But before she tells Nick, she fell off her horse that was rigged by none other than: Adrian.

Adrian discovers that Nick and Amy have slept together and the next day, Amy is discovered almost dead in her blackroom from thousands of bee stings....and Adrian is the obvious culprit.
Adrian invites Nick to her horseshow where she will be performing. After he doesn't show, she appears at a public event hosted by Pique magazine where she slaps him in the face infront of everyone and saying "Too busy kissing ass to care about me, Is that it?". He takes her outside and tells her to stay away from him and there is nothing between them.....

As Nick drives home from the event, there is a swarm of police cars and officers at his house: they say that Adrian said he raped her. He is taken to a police station and is released on bail. He was told that Adrian is up somewhere in the mountains with her family and he can go back to the house to get his things.

That is where the real cat-and-mouse game comes into play. Adrian has escaped and returned to the house to get her one true love.

An interesting thing for horror fans to note: Amy Maddik is played by Jennifer Rubin: She plays former druggie Taryn in Nightmare On Elm Street 3.

(NOTE: Since I am reviewing the DVD version of THE CRUSH, the name of Alicia Silverstone's character Darian has been changed to Adrian because it was based on an actual event...)

RECCOMENDED TO FANS OF:
Poison Ivy (1992)
The Paperboy (1994)
Devil in the Flesh (1997)

CAST
Nick Eliot.................Cary Elwes
Adrian Forrester......Alicia Silverstone
Amy Maddik.............Jennifer Rubin
Cheyenne................Amber Benson
Cliff Forrester...........Kurtwood Smith
Liv Forrester.............Gwyneth Walsh

THE MOVIE: 4/4

THE PICTURE QUALITY: 9/10: A great transfer, 1.85:1 Widescreen. Some specs but nothing major.

THE AUDIO QUALITY: 10/10: The newly remastered Dolby 5.1 digital soundtrack for home theaters is perfect.

THE SPECIAL FEATURES: Are an incomplete cast filmography and 9 trailers for other films are included (The trailer for this film constantly says the name "Darian" and they had to dub the movie version so there was really no way to show the trailer unless they dubbed it)

SUBTITLES: English, Spanish and French.

The Crush is an excellent film mainly because of the very talented Alicia Silverstone. This was her first film?! She steals every single scene she's in with movie star magnatism. This film is much more interesting to watch than either Fatal Attraction or Single White Female, in fact, they don't even compare. Do NOT miss The Crush!

I just watched this recently and was shocked to find out they changed Alicia Silverstone's character's name in the movie and searched high and low to find out why. I found this bit of trivia at IMDB. In case you were wondering..."When "The Crush" was edited for TV, Alicia Silverstone's character's name changed from Darian to Adrian. Screenwriter Alan Shapiro had based the film on actual events that happened to him, and ended up being sued by the girl he wrote about, who had the same name as his "fictional" character!"

Contrary to what others have had to say about this movie I do not find the connection between this and Fatal Attraction. This movie involves a 14-year-old who has a crush on an older man. In Fatal Attraction Glenn Close is a grown woman who has a crush on a man. I felt this movie was much more exiciting and not as predictible as Fatal. Alicia Silverstone does a wonderful job as Adrian, and makes the viewer really want to label her a nut. If you enjoy a movie with some twists and turns and like Silverstone you will enjoy this. I felt the ending was a total surprise and not as predictible as other reviews have stated.

This movie is awesome! Alicia plays a 14 year old girl who looks and acts like she's 19. She develops a crush on the 27 year old guy named Nick who moves into her mother's duplex. Of course, her crush turns into something much more intense. It turns into a very disturbing obsession! She devotes a little shrine in her basement to Nick, complete with candles and pictures. She even beats herself up and claims that Nick raped her and beat her! The cops even find his semen inside her. "But how could she do THAT??" you ask. Rent/buy this movie and find out!

If you like Alicia Silverstone,then you'll love The Crush.I think she was soooo sexy in this film and I could watch it again and again!The story is about a 17 year old that has an obsession with an older guy and she'll do anything in her power to have him! I love her acting and no one could have ever did a better job than Alicia!The girl is sexy as hell !

This was Alicia Silverstone's debut film after which she went on to star in some Aerosmith videos (what red-blooded American male can ever forget seeing her and Liv Tyler in "Crazy"?) after which she got the lead in Clueless (1995) and the rest is cinematic history.

In Clueless of course she was a sweet, adorable and slightly empty-headed Valley Girl. Here she is what might be called a Lolita from hell. Director Alan Shapiro even has her do a Sue Lyon (from Kubrick's 1964 Lolita) looking-over-her-sunglasses imitation to start the film. We soon learn that she is 14 "almost 15." (Silverstone was actually 15-years-old during the filming.) She is also rich and very talented, plays a classical piano, knows the scientific names of beetles and wasps, has skipped two grades, etc. The film itself might be dubbed a kind of "Fatal Attraction" for teeny-boppers.

Cary Elwes plays Nick Eliot who is looking for some digs as the film begins. He is a writer who just got a gig with an important, trendy magazine. After nearly bumping into Adrian (Silverstone) with his car, he looks askance and sees a sign advertising a cottage for rent in back of a large house with estate. Turns out this is where Adrian lives with her parents.

Somehow this reminds me of William Holden as the writer Joe Gillis pulling into that driveway on Sunset Boulevard (1950). He should have looked in the other direction! He should have run the other way! When Little Miss Crazy gets a crush, it is a hum-dinger. Maybe Nick should have just surrendered at the start and she would have been bored with him in a couple of months at most. But unfortunately, Nick Eliot is the epitome of the clueless male. He doesn't see the danger until it is too late. He is slightly compromised because he has kissed her, he has wandered about her house when her parents haven't been at home, and worse yet he doesn't have an inkling of the strength of her passion. To be honest I felt a little sorry for her having to deal with all that rejection! I think this would have played more realistically had Adrian's part been given to an ugly little shrew in the making. But then of course the film would not have found any kind of audience.

Well, this is a familiar premise and the kind I like to see worked out and resolved--well, I like to look at Alicia. Unfortunately Alan Shapiro, who also wrote the script, has the originality of a photocopy machine and just milks the premise while mindlessly escalating the bizarro. Suffice it to say that Little Miss Crazy doesn't take no for an answer and that Nick stupidly behaves in a way that just makes his situation worse. The ending does have the virtue of being nicely ironic while suggesting the hoped-for sequel.