Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)

 

[caption id="attachment_5049" align="alignright" width="254" caption="Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) Movie Cover"][/caption]

Magnolia Pictures, Eden Rock Media, Looby Lou, Reliance Motion Picture Company, and UrbanIsland
Theatrical Release: January 22, 2010
Home Release: November 29, 2011
Directed by Eli Craig
Rated R

If you love comedy with a bit of slasher gore, then Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is the movie for you. This movie had me rolling with laughter. However, it did take me a while before I decided to watch it (like a year). I did not know anything about this flick and the cover did not spark my interest, a hillbilly with a chainsaw. Finally I took a chance to find out what the hell this is about… so glad I did. The film is a riot from beginning to end. I loved it.  It's about hillbillies and college students, always a perfect match for a horror movie.

The two main characters are Tucker (Alan Tydyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) your typical backwoods hillbilly stereotypes. What come to mind immediately are scenes from the movie "The Deliverance." In reality, two regular guys doing nothing more than hanging out, wearing coveralls and ball caps.  So what makes them look so frightful? It's a horror movie! They are dressed like off the farm, kind of regular "Joe" in looks, if you think about it, kind of like the rest of us (when we are not at work or out on the town). Not every person from the hills has the looks of the Duke Boys (Dukes of Hazzard). If our hillbilly duo looked like Bo and Luke Duke, then this movie would have been a teenage romance flick. The beauty of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, is that most of us look like this dynamic duo.  Don't think you don't, be honest.

Our pair are on vacation and heading to their newly purchased summer home for some beer drinking, fixing up, getting stupid and fishing. Then you have your college kids, who are on a weekend trip to party.  Yes the beginning of a typical slasher movie. As Tucker and Dale pass the students in their old beat up pick up truck everything goes silent in the SUV, as the ominous duo pass and cause suspicion with the students.  Whew… a creepy scene on the highway.  It gets better; the students have to stop to tank up the SUV (what about $120 for a fill up today). They stop in the only gas station they group runs across. The presence of more hillbillies makes them very uneasy.  And guess who else is at the gas station the hillbilies that passed them on the highway, the threatening Tucker and Dale. At the gas station Dale takes a shine to Allison (Katrina Bowden), a blond in the group, and is encouraged by Tucker to go ask her out. This is the first scene where we know that this is a comedy horror movie. The two are normal, they talk fine, they are cautious of strangers, and shy to ask a girl out.  Dale brings up the nerves and takes a walk to the college crew; however things just do not go too well. Dale is tongue tied and the college kids think he's another hillbilly freak. This is where the alpha male makes his presence of the group, Chad (Jesse Moss - in Hollywood movies the name Chad is usually the rich prick) threatens Dale to better watch out.

Everyone arrives at their destination, Dale and Tucker to their not so beautiful new summer home, and the college kids to their campground. At the campground Chad tells them the group a "true" scary campfire story of a hillbilly freak,  who in these very woods that went on killing spree 20 years ago. Now this murderous vision is set in all their heads.

As the evening comes the group goes swimming. Not too far away are Dale and Tucker fishing. The two catch a glimpse of Allison on a rock getting undressed ready to jump in the water. She sees the two, screams, falls in the water, and knocks her head.  The rest of the group instead of helping their friend, get scared and take off leaving Allison to the frightful hillbillies. Dale and Tucker do not know what to do but know the girl needs help as she is unconscious; so they take her to the cabin.

Our college campers tell the events to Chad that she was abducted by the duo. Chad's incites the others that it's either kill or be killed, them against the freak hillbillies. Of course there is one college kid that wants to reason. Cautiously, he walks up to the house looking for Allison. In the back Tucker is cutting a log with a chainsaw when he hits a bee hive. The bees swarm all around, to save his butt Tucker takes off like a wild man, as he is running, arms and chainsaw in the air, trying to get away from the bees, the college kid is proceeding to the house. He sees a crazed hillbilly running with a chainsaw. What would you think, you freakin run, not knowing Tucker is just trying to get away from the bees. Both, Tucker and the kid bolt in fear, the kid without paying attention runs into a log and spears himself to death. Tucker does not know that the kid accidently killed himself till later. In one of the next scenes, Dale is digging with Allison when one of kids tries to spear Dale, but instead impales himself. The funny part just before this, Dale knocks out Allison with a shovel. At the same time on the other side of the house, Tucker is mulching wood in a machine, when another kid who starts running in a rage to stab tucker, Tucker bends down to grab some branches and the kid dives head first into the mulcher. Both Tucker and Dale are freaked out thinking that the group of college kids are actually out in the woods on a suicide pact.

This is how the rest of this filmgoes; two innocent guys are stalked by CRAZED college kids. It is survival, two hillbilly guys trying to save themselves (and Allison) from screwed up college kids. Chad is the bad guy in the end, who continues to stalk the two. Chad's screwed up mind (a psych major image that) is that Allison fell in love with her capture and now is as guilty as well.  In the end the good guys, Tucker and Dale survive, and Dale even gets the girl.

This movie takes a different look at people.  Tucker & Dale vs. Evil normalizes the stereotype of psychotic hillbillies because they are just like any of us. Some may have an strong accent, some may not, some of us wear fine new fashion, some of us just as comfortable in a t-shirt and blue jeans.  After watching Tucker & Dale, maybe all then scary stories of hillbillies being deviants exists because most watch too many movies.