Movie Review: Tucker and Dale vs Evil

“Tucker and Dale vs Evil” on IMDB

Horror/Comedy, 89 Minutes, 2010

[The second movie in our unexpected Tyler Labine [IMDB] film festival.   It became a “film festival” when we said “hey – that’s the guy from the last movie!”  Our rules for these things are clearly somewhat loose, but we find they work for us.]

This movie was stupid.  It was stupid and silly.  It was stupid, silly and god-damned, fucking fantastic.  It’s like Jason Voorhees and Freddy got together to do an episode of “Three’s Company” and instead of Chrissy putting the rent money into a vase right before Janet donates it to the church rummage sale she trips and stabs Mr. Furley in the eye.

The hook of the movie is that a group of college students go into the woods for camping trip.  At the same time two affable rednecks head into the same woods to their new “vacation home” – a derelict cabin the woods straight out of your nightmares.  These two groups do not mix well and when the kids assume that the evil hillbillies are out to kill them several hilarious deaths result.

Both Alan Tudyk (who is always utterly watchable) and Tyler Labine (really coming into his own here) are a joy to watch.  Katrina Bowden, as the female lead, is likeable and hot but there’s not really all that much asked of her.  The story does rub very close to “too dark” at points but is able to pull itself back from the brink every time.  My only minor nitpick is that the name really makes no sense, but I’ve decided to forgive that.

Fans of black comedy will love this for its anything-goes attitude and many cringe-inducing gore-gags.  Fans of horror will love this for playing so lovingly with the genre’s tropes.  Fans of stupid-but-hilarious comedy will love this because it’s stupid-but-hilarious.  That list of silly-great movies you keep around to pull out when your friends are over and it gets late?  This movie goes on it.