Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010)

Directed by: Eli Craig | 88 minutes | horror, comedy | Actors: Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden, Jesse Moss, Philip Granger, Brandon Jay McLaren, Christie Laing, Chelan Simmons, Travis Nelson, Alex Arsenault, Adam Beauchesne, Joseph Allan Sutherland, Karen Reigh, Tye Evans, Bill Baksa

If you have to believe horror films like ‘Wrong Turn’, ‘Cabin Fever’, ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, then it is not right in the backcountry of America. Certainly not if you are young and beautiful and looking forward to a relaxing camping trip with your friends. Behind every tree is a hillbilly with a cleaver, and a wrong turn or a flat tire can cost you dearly. With that film wisdom in mind, it’s not surprising that the students in ‘Tucker & Dale vs Evil’ get a little nervous when they bump into the farmer’s pummels Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) at a remote gas station. The fact that the men have just bought a chainsaw and a scythe and are behaving strangely in the presence of feminine beauty does not inspire confidence either.

First-time director Eli Craig got the idea for ‘Tucker & Dale’ when he was in a traffic jam and was diverted by a small village. The recently graduated filmmaker thought it might be fun to turn the cliché of the lost student around. What if, as a righteous hillbilly, you were besieged by a flock of young academics? It’s a simple concept that would get boring in the wrong hands, but in ‘Tucker & Dale vs Evil’ it’s a golden find. Craig doesn’t reverse the convention by unleashing a few homicidal corps balls in the countryside, but instead introduces two parallel storylines. The first follows Tucker and Dale, two simple souls with a golden heart who just bought a ramshackle log cabin in the woods. While fishing they save Allison, one of the students they met at the gas station from drowning. The second storyline follows the students, who see their fellow student being lifted into a boat by the pair.

The students are quick with their conclusions. The inbred kinks have kidnapped their girlfriend and her death warrant has been signed. One of the youth sets himself up as the leader and mobilizes the rest to launch a rescue operation. Unfortunately, the group proceeds so carelessly that one after the other loses their lives, which only increases the panic among those who remain. Meanwhile, Tucker and Dale watch with increasing amazement all those unfortunate accidents. This changing perspective gives you a constant smile, which grows wider as more bloody and slapstick-like situations arise. “Are you okay?” Tucker asks concerned to a young man who just accidentally jumped into his wood chipper. Humor and horror go well together, it shows. All you on ‘Tucker &

They are minor hiccups in a horror comedy that is ten times more fun than you would expect based on the trailer. The film playfully pokes fun at various horror clichés, pays homage to genre classics and undermines the expectations and prejudices of the cinema visitor. For example, the boy who in a regular horror film would be the supposedly killed hero is here unmasked as a paranoid bastard, the dull Dale turns out to have unexpected qualities, the drowning person is not at all as cool and spoiled as she initially seems and actually hangs there. some romance in the air. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine do the fun of being good guys who see their fishing vacation cruelly disrupted, but a special compliment goes to Katrina Bowden, who provides a ray of sunshine as the gentle Allison. With such a fun concept and such endearing characters, it is almost impossible not to take ‘Tucker & Dale vs Evil’ to your heart. The hillbillies of the world can again walk the streets with their heads held high.