SXSW Review: TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL is a comical fan fest of the horror movie genre, busting the stereotypes of creepy redneck hicks across the country. Director Eli Craig dishes up a bountiful load of laughs and hilarious kills, but despite the violence, this is not a horror movie.

Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are a couple of Appalachian country boys. These two are BFF’s and are pumped to get out to their newly acquired vacation home. It’s a fixer-upper, but they’re darn proud of finally having a little cabin in the woods to call their own.

Simultaneously, a car load of six college kids ready to party are traveling into the Appalachians to enjoy a bit of secluded youthful debauchery. The college kids first meet Tucker and Dale at the Last Chance Gas station, where first impressions fail Dale as Tucker encourages him to go talk to the sexy blond college girl named Allison (Katrina Bowden) he’s ogling over. Fearful of the stereotypical image of backwoods DEER HUNTER types that Dale unintentionally delivers, the college kids tear out of the gas station lot, never to be seen again.

Well, we know better than that, don’t we? The college kids arrive at their comfy cabin while Tucker and Dale arrive at their slightly more run-down cabin. After a bit of evaluation, Tucker and Dale head out on the lake for some night time fishing and beers. This is where things begin to go downhill as a purely innocent accident snowballs throughout the film into a terribly deadly misunderstanding. The chain reaction of events that take place weave an almost slapstick style of physical comedy with the classic buddy style humor of Abbot and Costello.

Eli Craig clearly has a fondness for the genre, but his intent is to portray the rednecks in a light very much the opposite of how they’re normally seen in the cinema. For Craig, Tucker and Dale are about the nicest, well-mannered (in their own special way) couple of gentlemen in the Appalachian Mountains. This is obvious right from the beginning, as the audience is immediately smitten with the lovable pair, overalls and all.

The college kids, however, remain the stereotypical horror genre fare. All the classic shallow personalities are there, speaking all the typical dialogue and doing all the typical stupid stuff college kids do in horror movie. The catch is that they’re doing it all to their selves, leaving the vulnerably unlucky Tucker and Dale to serve as the unquestionable culprits in this comedy of carnage.

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL is fun and fast-paced, the dialogue is spot on and the humor is refined… in the redneck sense of the word. For a smaller film, the special effects makeup is accomplished and effective, offering gore hounds plenty of blood and guts. The film draws on the obvious influences of films past, but becomes its own beast through Eli Craig’s simple yet unique vision.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars