Interview: Steve Oram from ‘Crushed’

In his latest film Crushed, Steve Oram plays a priest whose daughter is kidnapped after viewing an extreme video. He is then force to explore a variety of issues while dealing with these harrowing events. Love Horror’s Gavin Brown had the pleasure of catching up with Steve to talk all about what Crushed is about, how the film was made, plus  some other horror-related discussion points. 

Exclusive interview: Steve Oram from ‘Crushed’

Love Horror: In your new film, Crushed, you play a troubled priest. Was that a challenging role to get stuck into?

Steve Oram: It was a challenging role, yeah, because there are many themes within the film and within the role that I’m not particularly familiar with. I’m not someone from a religious background, so I had to immerse myself in the life of what that would be.
It’s someone who was Christian and lived in Bangkok and had a very different life to mine, and also of course, the challenge of thinking about what he’s going through as someone who has devoted his life to faith and finds it severely challenged. So it was getting into the head and the mind of someone I was not particularly familiar with, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

What was it like to film in Bangkok?

It was very intense. It’s a very chaotic place, and we spent our whole time in Bangkok. Everything was all there, so it was not like here – where things are very predictable – although we complain about it sometimes, but Bangkok’s very chaotic and it doesn’t have the rule of law. It has lots of things going on that are very different, but the crew were really nice. The Buddhist mentality meant that everyone was friendly and very nice, but the environment was very interesting.

Is this the first time you have shot a film in a completely different culture?

Yeah. I mean, I’ve filmed in Europe quite a few times, but not in Asia. People naturally gravitate towards the expat communities of which there is quite a small scene, and most of the actors there were either expats or they were from all sorts of different places. It was a very interesting way to work because normally I’ve just worked with a British crew and British actors. This time I was the only British person, apart from Simon Rumley – the director – that was working on this. So it was just an interesting and quite enlivening way of working. Everyone’s slightly different, and it was really great. I loved doing it.

Was it challenging to deal with the harrowing real life subjects that the film works with?

Yeah, of course. You put yourself in the hands of the director and the producer to an extent, but I was really happy to do it because of the script. Basically what you see on screen is what was scripted. It was very well worked out, the tone of it and it’s very controlled. It goes to places that are very dark, but it does so in a very good and very interesting way.
Actually, I think it does it in a subtle and surprising way because you might think that this would be kind of extreme – you’re seeing harrowing and horrific scenes, but actually, the film leaves a lot to the imagination.

I think this film is more interested in its themes and in its characters. It’s got some really good, well constructed characters within the script, and that’s what made me feel like I really wanted to work on it. I think it’s a real brilliant achievement from Simon, doing something so he had such a long gestation, and he made everything so you always felt in good hands.

Would you work with Simon again?

Absolutely! I’d love to if he wanted me. We’ve become good friends since doing it. It was one of those projects where you don’t quite know what’s going to happen, but the whole tone of it was really brilliant. He’s very good at working with actors. He likes actors, so that’s good.

Were you aware of the crush films that feature in the in the movie before?

No, I wasn’t, but I had seen Simon’s ABCs of Death, and it was quite a weird world. But yeah, human depravity knows no end.

What are some of your own favourite films that deal with real life horrors?

Well, I’m a big fan of films where people go into dark depths. I really like Wake In Fright, and that was one that I’ve been thinking about recently. It features a naive man who is thrust into a world of masculinity, and he’s just trying to get home at the end of his school semester, but gets stuck. I really like that. And I like the Alan Clarke stuff, films like The Firm, which I would see as a horror film, which is again stuck in masculinity. I suppose Crushed has some similarity because it is a cage made by horrible men, and that’s what a lot of true horror films are.

Having been in films that are rooted in real life horror like Crushed and Sightseers, would you like to do a more fantastical horror or thrillers in the future?

That’s right. I mean, I love horror and it’s such a broad church, isn’t it? I love the fun horror films. I would absolutely be up for that.

Can you tell us what else you’re going to be working on in the future?

I’m doing some acting roles at the moment in Down Cemetery Road, which is the Emma Thompson and Ruth Wilson show on Apple. I’m also doing a film called The Scurry, which is a horror/comedy film about squirrels that go mad and start murdering people, and that’s by Craig Roberts with Rhys Ifans. I’ve got part in that, which is really exciting. I can’t wait to see it, I have no date for that yet, but that should be out soon. 

What have been some of the highlights of your career so far, and what would you still love to do in the future?

Well, probably the highlight for me was Aaaaaaaah!, which is a film that I made where everyone speaks like apes. That’s my proudest moment, and that was a project where I just did it all by myself – produced it, directed it, made it myself. So I’m really proud of how it turned out.
I’d love to do another one of those, complete creative control and unmediated fun. 

Are you constantly working on ideas for the future?

Yeah, I’ve spent a lot of my career writing scripts and going through development processes, and it’s a very torturous thing. I’ve spent a lot of time doing projects that will never get made, especially in television and so forth. As you get older, you think, “I’ve got to do more stuff that actually gets made”. So that’s the focus at the moment, to do projects, which I’m working on, which hopefully will get produced in the next year or two.

Crushed trailer: