Sundance Film Review Nick Frost Alicia Silverstone – The Hollywood Reporter

Alicia Silverstone and Nick Frost in “Krazy House”

Courtesy of the Sundance Institute

Remember this scene in Natural born killers Where Juliette Louis A.’s character enters Married with childrenA sitcom along the lines of Rodney Dangerfield playing her father? Imagine an entire movie based on this concept, add lots of violence and gore — not to mention gags about Christ and Catholicism, a tray full of crystal meth, and, in one late scene, a dog being decapitated by a shotgun blast — and you’ll get an idea of ​​what’s in store while watching the set Sundance Midnight Selected, Crazy house.

Although this already sounds like an exaggeration, sitting through a movie is even more exhausting – like Hard R Saturday Night Live A drawing so far drawn out that you just hope it stops. The relentless and irritating debut of Dutch hitmakers Stephen Harz and Philipp van der Kuyl is unlikely to attract a wide audience in the United States, although it may gain them a small following.

Steffen & Flip, as they’re known at home, burst onto the scene in 2007 with the hit teen TV series, New babieswhich they then modified into a gonzo feature, New Kids Turbo. The latter film grossed over $12 million and topped the domestic box office, becoming one of the most successful Dutch films of all time. The duo followed up with a less successful sequel, New Kids Nitro; Another action comedy, Ron Goossens, the low-budget stuntman; And the profane, extremely inappropriate title His brothers before him.

The filmmakers bring the same kind of chaos and raunchy humor Crazy housewhich was inspired by classic 1980s sitcoms such as Full house And Who is the manager? By taking this setup and turning it on its head — as well as being sodomized (SPOILER ALERT) several times with a porcelain Jesus statue — the directors turn an average, if somewhat offbeat, family comedy into an exhausting bloodbath of debauchery.

The victim family in question is a clan of believers known as Christians. Nick Frost plays father Ned, Alicia Silverstone plays mother Eva, and Dutch actors Gait Janssen and Walt Klink play their teenage children Sarah and Adam. All seems well, sort of, in the Christian family when the film begins, even if Ned and Eva don’t really get along, and the latter has occasional flashes of murder and crucifixion.

Things quickly go downhill when a trio of Russian thugs – Pyotr (Jan Bijvoet), Dmitry (Chris Peters), and Igor (Matti Stoker) – conspire to enter the house, taking Christians hostage as they search for a hidden bag of money. Soon Sarah becomes pregnant with Dimitri’s child, Adam becomes addicted to methamphetamine, and Eva becomes Piotr’s prisoner.

So it’s up to Ned to save the day, with Frost dropping the faux-American accent as he transforms from a sweater-wearing Christ-obsessed man into a vengeful, blood-soaked father. Jesus himself also appears in the form of Kevin Connolly, who intervenes in some depressing scenes as Ned fights evil, filling the Russians with bullet holes and other wounds.

Crazy house It hardly elicits laughs, even if a sitcom-style laugh track plays throughout the first part of the film, which is shot to fit the old 4:3 aspect ratio of a chest tube. When the Russians arrive to wreak havoc and the film expands to widescreen, it becomes so persistent in its pursuit of bad, bawdy humor that it truly is an ordeal to sit through, not because of the gross-out factor, but because the jokes are all of a kind. Of loud and dumb.

To the directors’ credit, they’re not afraid to take things further – which could be considered a quality in itself, but not a sustainable quality for nearly 90 minutes of work. You might be wondering, how many movies feature the inflamed corpse of a newborn being used as a projectile? Or Nick Frost screaming “Fuck you, Jesus Christ!” While he was nailed to the cross? Certainly not many, and here’s why Crazy house Unique and, unfortunately, uniquely unbearable.