Horror-comedies are a mixed bag. Often they’re not scary or violent enough to satisfy your horror boner, nor are they funny enough to tickle your funny bone(r). When they work well, you get an Evil Dead II or a Dead and Breakfast. When they fail you get…I don’t know, who remembers shitty horror-comedies?
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil follows two lovable, well meaning rednecks through a series of misunderstandings that result in a group of vacationing college kids being convinced the duo are out to murder them. Like any educated group, the kids decide the best thing to do is to take the war to the hillbillies and try to kill them and rescue their “kidnapped” friend. Things go comically and fatally awry to great effect.
Kills
Things don’t go so well for the non-hillbillies and a full dozen kids find themselves on the wrong end of pointy objects.
Ills
Death’s preferred method this go round is impalement, as people find themselves skewered on tree limbs and spears. Other unlucky folks meet up with a woodchipper, nails to the brain, bullets to the face, a weed whacker to the face, and a few people meet up with flames in the worst way possible.
Lust
We briefly see a big pair of boobies from a far off distance and those same boobs are later covered in a bloody goop. We also briefly see a very hot woman in her underwear, but it’s easy to keep your boner contained during this flick.
Learning
You can’t judge a hillbilly by his overalls.
Review
I had heard a lot about Tucker & Dale vs Evil coming into it and the film had a ton of positive built up from festival screenings even before it acquired a distributor. I’m pretty happy to report that the film is immensely enjoyable. It has a good bit of gore and a ton of laughs.
The real success of the movie is in casting the leads: Tyler Labine (Reaper) as Dale and Alan Tudyk (Firefly) as Tucker with Katrina Bowden (Esquire’s Sexiest Woman Alive 2011) as Allison. The hillbillies play perfectly off of each other and Labine steals the show as the affable Dale, who assures us over and over again that he’s plenty stupid, but has a brain that can recall just about anything he’s ever learned.
The Blu-ray comes stacked with extra features, including a mode called “Tucker & Dale Are Evil” which is the film told through the POV of the college kids that illustrates how they came to believe Tucker and Dale actually were out to kill them, which is pretty cool. It includes alternate takes of the footage, takes that aren’t as good as what’s actually in the film, so you’re best of watching this for giggles later.
As it stands, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is an excellent straight to DVD release that you should pick-up if you like some laughs with your blood. If I had an issue with the film, it would be the occasional misuse of CGI that looks pretty bad. Otherwise, there are a lot of great practical gore gags in the film. Oh, also, next time lets get some more boobies on screen.
