Carrying on October by watching more horrors I haven't seen I present to you Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010), a genuine and surprising delight. Coming into this film I didn't really know what to think. I had heard good things about the film but something about it just didn't appeal all that much to me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something kept me from watching the film before now, and I am ever so slightly pissed off for skipping it for so long. This film was a blast from start to finish and I had a much better time with it than I was expecting. The comedy of the film is spot on and although it isn't particularly rolling in the isles funny there was some genuine laugh out loud moments in there. The film is essentially a slasher film if there was never a slasher. It opens with a group of college teens driving to the woods to go camping when they have to make a stop to pick up some beer. The shop they come upon is a stereotypical redneck shack and this freaks out the group somewhat, and so they leave with a sense of paranoia about rednecks. It as this point that we meet our titular characters, Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), who are a couple of these aforementioned rednecks. They happen to be going to a similar place to the teens as Tucker has just bought a new shack out there which he and Dale are hoping to spruce up and turn into a holiday home. They go fishing on the first night there whilst the group of teens go skinny dipping at the same time. One of the teens, Allison (Katrina Bowden), falls from a rock and hits hr head, prompting Dale to dive in the lake and save her from drowning. The group of teens see Tucker and Dale dragging Allison out of the water and due to their paranoia towards rednecks believe that they are kidnapping her. They run away with fear which confuses Tucker and Dale who decide to take her back to the cabin to rest up. This leads into a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications leading to the accidental deaths of several teens and the framing of the innocent Tucker and Dale, and it is hilarious whilst doing so.
Before I get into the whole slapstick nature of the film and the reasons it succeeds in being a great horror comedy I would like to just praise a few of the performances. As far as the group of teens go they all do fine, with the exception of Jesse Moss but we'll get on to him. None of them are particularly memorable except maybe Allison but I think that is only because she is one of the primary characters and not due to an exceptional performance. But at the same time, I think that the performances are perfect for this type of film. The film is comedy built into a slasher and the kids play the film as though it is a slasher and so you know if you've seen many bad slashers that the performances are never great, and in that sense the actors all do brilliantly. Whether this was the intent or not I have no idea, but if it was its genius. Now I'll come onto Jesse Moss who plays Chad, the psycho member of the college group who has blood lust for Tucker and Dale. He is clearly having a blast playing this character, chewing the set like it’s no one’s fucking business, and he almost steals the show due to it. He plays the character so over the top that in any other film he would be comical for the wrong reasons, but fortunately for him he finds himself in a comedy where the laughs all come from over the top and ridiculous moments and scenarios, so he works perfectly. As for Tudyk and Labine as Tucker and Dale they put in brilliant performances. Not only is their comic timing fantastic but they make these two characters very likeable and make you have an emotional connection to them, so much so that late in the film there is a really emotional scene between the two that really tugged at my heartstrings. Fortunately, the scene ended with a comedic moment to save me from getting to emotional. Tudyk and Labine are brilliant in the titular roles and they elevate the film to a plane above where it probably would have been without them.
Now let’s talk about what makes this film so enjoyable and that is the style of comedy it has. It is comedy that seems older than it is in its style with it being a lot of slapstick and misunderstandings and perspective leading to very comic moments. The gore that the film uses is also very funny but is effective as gore and horrific moments as well. What makes these gory scenes more comic than disgusting and scary though is just how over the top all the moments of gore are, and it is so well done. There is a moment where one of the teens jumps head first into a woodchipper in a very funny scene, and just before this a teen armed with a stick ends up missing Dale and falls onto his own weapon. The film makes sure to never have Tucker or Dale kill any of these kids and instead just keep making ridiculous, over the top and hilarious scenarios in which these kids in attempting to escape from and attack Dale and Tucker manage to kill themselves. It is endlessly entertaining and very, very funny. But it isn't all just slapstick moments, in fact some of the funniest moments come from lines of smart dialogue. It is all about perspective as we continue to switch from the perspective of the teens and Tucker and Dale, and it is done in a way where we can understand why these teens would be concerned. There are several times where we see half a conversation from the perspective of the teens which make it seem like Dale and Tucker are evil rednecks, but of course we know that is not the case, which makes the reactions of the teens to the situation very funny. One negative I would say about the comedy is that because the film takes so much from the slasher genre I feel like you would need at least a little knowledge or history with the genre to really appreciate a lot of the comedy, but on the whole, I feel like it would still be entertaining.
Tucker and Dale vs Evil is a film that really took me surprise, even though it probably shouldn’t have as I had only heard positive things about it. As someone who has seen a lot of crap slasher films in my time to have a film like this which takes the tropes and clichés of that genre and morphs them to become something else, something new and, most importantly, something entertaining was a real treat. It is a film that I would recommend to horror fans in particular as I feel that you may get more out of it than someone who is not a fan of horror, but there is still enough here for almost anyone to enjoy and at a cool 89 minutes in length it is an absolute breeze to get through. Treat yourself this scary time of year and watch this gem of a horror comedy.