Krazy House (film)

Krazy House is a 2024 Dutch comedy film written and directed by Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil in their Dutch/English-language feature debuts. Shot on location in Amsterdam, the film stars Nick Frost, Kevin Connolly and Alicia Silverstone. Maarten Swart serves as producer for Kaap Holland Films.

Synopsis
In the 1990s, a religious home maker Bernie (Frost) and his family suddenly discover the workmen in his house are Russian criminals prepared to tear the house apart looking for loot.

Cast

 * Nick Frost as Bernard 'Bernie' Christian
 * Kevin Connolly as Jesus
 * Alicia Silverstone as Eva Christian
 * Gaite Jansen as Sarah Christian
 * Walt Klink as Adam Christian
 * Jan Bijvoet as Pjotr
 * Chris Peters as Dmitri
 * Matti Stooker as Igor

Development
Writer-directors “Steffen & Flip” (Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil) co-produce alongside Maarten Swart for Kaap Holland Film who have Jorn Baars serving as executive producer, along with Todd Brown of XYZ Films. Splendid Films is handling distribution of the film in the Benelux region. The project had support from the Netherlands Film Production Incentive who revealed in 2020 they had given €526,995 to the project. Additional support came from the Netherlands Film Fund and the Abraham Tuschinski Fund Foundation.

Filming
Principal photography took place in Amsterdam in mid-January 2022. Filming wrapped prior to XYZ Films taking on North American sales for the film at the European Film Market in February 2023. Lead actor Nick Frost was quoted by Variety as saying the production was a "completely bonkers project to be a part of and I’ve absolutely loved every minute of it." Silverstone told The Hollywood Reporter "I had a ball in Amsterdam, making a film with these amazing interesting filmmakers".

Release
The film premiered in the Midnight section at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2024, and was theatrically released in the Netherlands on May 16, 2024 by Splendid Films.

Reception
In a negative review, Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Krazy House hardly elicits a laugh, even if a sitcom-style laugh track plays throughout the first part of the movie, which was shot to fit the old 4:3 boob tube aspect ratio. When the Russians arrive to wreak havoc and the film expands to widescreen, it becomes so persistent in its pursuit of bad and bawdy humor that it's truly a test to sit through, not because of the gross-out factor but because the jokes are all kind of loud and dumb."

Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting also gave the film a negative review and wrote, "There's a very hyper-specific audience in mind for Krazy House, the type that doesn't mind hollow exercises in shock value and gag-inducing humor without aim. But mostly, Krazy House just feels like a grating marathon of purposeless excess, devoid of effective humor. It somehow makes an 86-minute runtime feel like an absolute slog. The equivalent of nails on a chalkboard."