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There are films that just come out of nowhere and stun the you—films that shape and bend conventional cinema wisdom and turn it on its ear. Such is Tucker & Dale vs Evil – one of the funniest movies I have ever seen at a film festival.
It is almost a blasphemy of spoiler alerts to tell even small parts about the plot. So, without giving away too much, here goes. Tucker & Dale vs Evil is about a case of mistaken intentions to the nth degree. Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are two good old boys who buy a Virginia fishing cabin. On the way, they come across a group of college kids that look like the cross section of every horror flick made in the 1980’s. Dale tries to talk to Alison (Katrina Bowden) which the others perceive as some kind of hillbilly backwoods freak-fest. Up in the woods, the two hapless heroes are fishing in a boat when Alison falls into the water. The other college kids think that she has been abducted by Tucker and Dale, even thinking that Dale was eating Alison’s face.
As Tucker and Dale try to give medical treatment to Alison back at the cabin, the others plan to attack, and rescue their friend. It becomes a melee of comic violence as college kid after college kid fall to the wayside, all of it blamed on Tucker and Dale. This is a morbid comic take with the blackest of humor.
Both Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk are brilliant with dead pan gallows humor. As the body count rises, so does the shocked reactions. These simpletons try and figure out why the college kids keep killing themselves, and the kids become even more obsessed in the demise of our two heroes. It is a comedy of manners… bad manners.
Director Eli Craig brings his A game with his first directing feature. He takes a strong command of both the camera and the cast, twisting gallows humor with genre conventions. There are so many cinematic references, from those crazed splatter flicks to silent melodrama. It is clever while keeping the tongue firmly against the cheek. He has given the world a fresh vision while keeping the roots of genre in place.
Tucker & Dale vs Evil is a devilish treat for the midnight movie crowd, the kind of film that’s a loving homage to all those great old flicks that peppered the grindhouse inner-city cinemas. It is one of my favorite flicks of 2010, and deserves to be seen past the festival circuit. Go to the respective websites and demand that your local theaters play this little gem.
