The Crush (1993)

Directed by Alan Shapiro. Starring Cary Elwes, Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Rubin, Kurtwood Smith, Amber Benson, Matthew Walker, Gwynyth Walsh, Sheila Paterson. [R]

Dopey exploitation trash rates pretty low among the flood of early-90s domestic thrillers. This one concerns a fourteen-year-old Lolita-type (Silverstone) fostering an unhealthy fixation on the handsome researcher (Elwes) who moves into her family’s guest house; after he rejects her, she goes the full-blown psycho route to either be with him or destroy his life out of revenge. Whether carving profanities into the hood of his car or maniacally chopping lemons with a butcher knife or pouring angry wasps into his photographer girlfriend’s dark room, it’s all very silly and familiar. Manages a few inadvertently hysterical moments (the teenager flirtatiously calling him up one morning to say, “Got my period; definitely not pregnant…not that I had any reason to be”), but there’s too little conviction or style to really succeed as so-bad-it’s-fun camp…though a finale involving a fight to the finish on an attic carousel comes close. Silverstone’s film debut.

36/100