‹‹Krazy House, which screened Monday at the Sundance Film Festival, creates a gleeful sitcom nightmare. But, it crosses three lines into such bad taste it spoils the fun.
"Krazy House" was a TV sitcom airing in 1990. Bernie Christian (Nick Frost) is a devout Christian.
His wife Eva (Alicia Silverstone) is the harried breadwinner. Their kids Sarah (Gaite Jansen) and Adam (Walt Klink) rebel against Bernie's faith.
Very quickly the sitcom shenanigans escalate into chaos that would never be feasible in 1990 television. Pratfalls include fire stunts and broken water pipes.
The sitcom keeps cutting to brief clips of blood, crucifixion and voices telling Bernie to "kill them all." The studio audience still laughs and coos at sitcom moments.
Three Russian day laborers (Jan Bijvoet, Chris Peters, Matti Stooker) come to fix the faucet but end up demolishing the house over the next several days. The Christian kids end up falling for the two Russian brothers, Igor (Stooker) and Dmitri (Peters).
Krazy House puts evil activities in the sitcom format. Adam and Igor use Adam's chemistry set to make crystal meth. Sarah has sex with Dmitri while Bernie and Eva watch.
All of this works because filmmakers Steffan Haars and Flip Van der Kuil stick to the tropes and formula of sitcoms. The cheesy family sitcom is the skeleton and the outrageous comedy stems from there.
The Russians are actually there to locate something in the house, a MacGuffin to be revealed later. As the violence escalates the square TV sitcom cuts to a more widescreen film.
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This is a device the TV show Kevin Can F*** Himself already did. Instead of cutting to a drama, Krazy House cuts to a horror movie and it worked to a point.
Yet it still follows the format of sitcoms, adding in the home invasion genre too. The tonal blend is the movie's strength.
Unfortunately, escalations into animal killing, infanticide and rape suggest maybe this wasn't an intelligent tonal satire. Those three subjects are so taboo that most immature filmmakers just use them for shock value.
Movies can use animals, babies and sexual violence effectively but it's a very delicate balance. The point of Krazy House was to see how far they could take the sitcom format and the violence, but the filmmakers should be above exploring certain taboos just to get a reaction.
Don't try to be edgy. Be clever.
Not only does it sour the first half of the movie, but it loses any good will for the rest of the movie. It's a lot harder to tolerate bizarre jokes after a baby dies.
The Midnight audience at Sundance expects movies to be extreme, but those who are game for outrageous violence may still find subsequent scenes distasteful.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.