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Horror as a film genre is one that tends to repeat itself. Horror fan or not, you know that there are certain tropes and situations that constantly assert themselves in seemingly every film. Groups that split up even though there’s a god damn murderer/monster on the loose, the couple having sex getting killed first, the girl either running upstairs while being chased by a killer or tripping on flat ground, and so on and so on. As the years have gone by, there are many films that have played on those horror tropes ,often for the purposes of comedy. The first Scream film was a slasher flick that celebrated the formulary of old-school slasher flicks like Halloween, and films like Young Frankenstein and Cabin in the Woods were able to shine a satirical light on horror while being able to stand on their own as good movies. Occasionally it falls flat, like every single iteration of Scary Movie past the first two, but that’s to be expected. Dying is easy after all, comedy is hard. #catchphrase.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil lets you know right from the title screen that tongue is being placed firmly in cheek with this movie. The film details the story of Tucker and Dale (obviously), two country boys who have journeyed to an obscure and possibly not actually real lake in West Virginia to take in some fishing at Tucker’s new ‘summer home’. As fate would have it, their journey crosses paths with that of your typical group of dumbass college kids on a camping trip, who are totally convinced that T&D are the type of insane murderous hillbillies that are so common in horror films nowadays. When Dale saves Allison (the main college girl) from drowning, the college kids assume that she’s been kidnapped and taken to the creepy rape barn, and starting freaking out in typical horror movie fashion. The ensuing conflict between Tucker, Dale, and the dumbass college kids shall be one of gruesome violence, horrific deaths and revenge, and exactly who is ‘Evil’ in this scenario may buck a trend or two.
I’m generally not a watcher of more modern horror films, partially because most of them look like polished up turds shat out by the Syfy network for a quick buck and partially because there’s so many older horror movies that I have yet to see, but I had a lot of fun with T&DvE. Not only does it strike a good balance between horror and comedy, but I also found myself really liking Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) as characters. They have a great chemistry working with each other, good sense of comedic timing, and they’re by far the most interesting and emotionally vibrant characters in the film. If you’re a person who likes to laugh more than scream on Halloween, consider putting this on your film queue
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