1 of 7 | Alicia Silverstone and Nick Frost star in “Krazy House.” Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute
PARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 22 (UPI) — 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.
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.
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM
AFFECTION movie poster | ©2026 Brainstorm Media
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne
Writer: BT Meza
Director: BT Meza
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: May 8, 2026
AFFECTION is an odd title for this tale. While it is about a number of topics and emotions, fondness isn’t one of them. Obsession, definitely. Love, possibly. The kind of general warm fellow feelings associated with “affection”? No.
There have been a lot of movies lately in which characters – mostly women – are grappling with false identities and/or false memories imposed upon them, mostly by men.
Let us stipulate that the protagonist (Jessica Rothe) in AFFECTION is not an android or in an artificial reality. However, we can tell something is way off from the opening sequence. A car is stalled on a tree-bordered highway. Rothe’s character is lying face down on the asphalt beside it, possibly dead.
But then the young woman rises, dragging a broken ankle. She experiences a full-body seizure. Fighting to recover, she sees oncoming headlights and tries to run, only to be hit by a car.
The woman wakes up in a bed she doesn’t recognize, next to a man (Joseph Cross) she likewise is sure she’s never seen before. One big confrontation later, the man says his name is Bruce – and that the woman is his wife, Ellie.
Ellie insists that her name is Sarah Thompson, and she is married to someone else, with a son. When she sees her reflection in a mirror, she doesn’t relate to the face looking back at her.
Bruce counters that Ellie has a rare neurological condition that causes her to block out her waking life and believe her dreams are real. This is why they agreed, together, to move to this isolated house, without the kinds of interruptions that can hinder Ellie’s recovery.
The set-up is presented in a way where we share Ellie’s skepticism. But Ellie and Bruce’s little daughter Alice (Julianna Layne) immediately identifies Ellie as “Mommy!” Alice appears to be too young to be in on any kind of deception, so what is going on here?
AFFECTION eventually explains this via a helpful videotape, though it’s so convoluted that viewers watching on streaming may want to replay the sequence to make sure they understand the exposition.
Writer/director BT Meza musters a sense of menace and lurking weirdness, as well as making great use of his location.
We still have a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered by the film’s end. It may not matter to the points AFFECTION is trying to make, but a better sense of exactly how all this started might help our investment.
As it is, despite a heroically versatile performance by Rothe, a credible and anguished turn by Cross and appealing work from Layne, we’re so busy trying to piece together what’s important and what’s not and how we’re supposed to feel about all of it that it can be hard to keep track of the action as it unfolds.
Agree or not, Meza’s arguments are lucid and illustrated clearly by AFFECTION’s events. However, the movie is structured in a way that becomes more frustrating as it goes. We comprehend it intellectually but can’t engage viscerally.
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RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — In this episode of 8News Reel Talk, digital producer Julia Broberg is joined by anchor Deanna Allbrittin and reporter Allison Williams to talk about “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
The hosts gave their reviews and assigned the following star ratings:
Deanna: ★★★★.5
Allison: ★★★.25
Julia: ★★
To watch more livestreams and digital video content, head to the WRIC+ Originals page. You can also watch full on-demand videos on your smart TV using the WRIC+ app.
Billie Eilish fans prepare yourself, the much talked about secret project has finally arrived on the big screens!
Billie Eilish has always been about intimacy over artifice, but her latest concert film takes that to a visceral new level. Co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) manages to bridge the gap between a massive stadium show and the quiet grit of life backstage.
The film starts 18 minutes out from the show and builds the tension until audiences are literally folded into a box with her. Being taken under the stage, passing fans who have no idea she’s inches away, sets a tone of total immersion. What makes this film different is the balance between the spectacle and the behind-the-scenes reality. We see the creative shorthand between Billie and James Cameron as they chase what she calls the “best kind of sensory overload”.
The film is very much fan focussed, with the sound mix being so specific that you can hear individual fans singing along in sync with the visuals.
There are so many standout moments, the handheld camera work during “Bad Guy” that gives a dizzying POV of the band, and the chilling minute of silence Billie requests from the crowd to record a vocal loop.
The film captures her unique stage presence. Influenced by rap culture, Billie refuses to have anyone else on stage, unlike many female artists that use back up dancers. Billie can hold the entire stadium in awe by herself which is incredible to witness, until Finneas joins her for a beautiful, emotional piano set.
Between the high-tech visuals and the “Puppy Room” (where she keeps rescue dogs for staff to decompress), the film feels incredibly personal. While the film doesn’t give us any new insights into Billie, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) is an enjoyable experience that elevates the tradition concert film.
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