“Crush” to Premiere on Paramount+ on Tuesday, October 17
Paramount+ announced that its two-part docuseries CRUSH will premiere exclusively on the service, beginning Tuesday, October 17, ahead of the first anniversary of the devastating crowd catastrophe in Seoul, South Korea, on October 29th, 2022. CRUSH is a spine-tingling account of what happened when a Halloween night of celebration turned into a nightmare. More than 100,000 young revelers, who were packed into the narrow bar-lined alleyways of Seoul’s trendy Itaewon neighborhood, became trapped in a mass panic. The toll was astonishing: 159 people, including two American students studying abroad, had suffocated and died that night. Nearly all those who perished were in their twenties.
From the co-producers of the award-winning docuseries 11 MINUTES, CRUSH tells this hard-to-fathom story in a breath-catching immersive style, relying only on the voices of those who were either caught up in the crowd, themselves, or trying to respond and render help as the scale of the unfolding tragedy became apparent. Using raw footage, first-person accounts, real-time body camera video, surveillance video, and cell phone footage, CRUSH brings viewers into the crowd to experience the panic as chaos takes hold.
CRUSH is told through the eyes of the people who were there: An American student – who convinced her roommate to go out to a bar for the first time – emotionally relives the night that would be her friend’s last; two off-duty American soldiers describe how they pulled often unconscious people from the crowd and tried to save as many as possible; a fashion executive talks about his desperate search for his best friend; and a Korean illustrator, who was buried under dozens of bodies, and now must come to terms with being partially paralyzed.
CRUSH tackles disturbing questions that have rocked South Korea as victims’ families cry out for justice, accusing their government of being unprepared and slow to respond. Two mid-level officials committed suicide, but the country’s president and his cabinet ministers appear to be weathering the storm, bruised but holding on to power, nonetheless. The series is a shocking tale of fate and randomness, how the lives of strangers can intersect and the courage some people find in moments of crisis.
CRUSH is executive produced by Emmy(R) and Peabody winner Jeff Zimbalist (Momentum Generation, The Two Escobars, ReMastered, The Line) and Stu Schreiberg (11 MINUTES, ReMastered). Co-executive producer is Josh Gaynor. Producers are Alana Saad and Sejin Park. CRUSH is produced by Triage Entertainment, All Rise Films and See It Now Studios. For See It Now Studios, Susan Zirinsky and Terence Wrong executive produce, and Aysu Saliba and Cara Tortora are supervising producers.
