Movie Review: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil · 10:02pm Jul 17th, 2020

How many of you have heard this type of setup for a horror movie before?

A group of college kids head out to the sticks for a Memorial Day weekend of partying and having fun. But along the way they encounter some suspicious-looking hillbillies at the gas station. And upon arriving at their stop, things rapidly escalate and soon it becomes an all-out battle for survival...

...Except, in this story, it's not the college kids who are the protagonists in mortal danger. It's the hillbillies.

Tucker and Dale versus Evil begins with our title characters - confident outdoorsman Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and the more sensitive Dale (Tyler Labine) on their way to fix up a cabin that Tucker has bought and plans to turn into a vacation home. At the gas station picking up supplies, they run into the aforementioned group of college kids, but the nervous Dale's attempt to make a good first impression goes hilariously awry and ends up convincing the group that they're typical creepy hicks like you see in horror movies. Later on, while fishing at their vacation spot, Tucker and Dale accidentally spook one of the college girls, kindhearted sociology major Alison (Kristen Bowden) and she nearly drowns. Tuck and Dale manage to save her, but the panicking college kids think that the hillbillies have actually kidnapped her.

The boys take Alison back to their cabin to recover, and try to find some way to communicate they mean no harm to her friends, but accidents and misunderstandings keep piling up... and so does the body count. By the time the climax comes about, it's Dale in an all-out fight to the death with the college students' leader, Chad (Jesse Moss).

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is a cleverly fun movie in a lot of ways. It smartly evokes movies like Deliverance, Evil Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre without being overt or ripping them off beat for beat. It manages to be a very funny parody of the horror genre (wherein all the horrible deaths happen that the college kids suffer are entirely their own fault) and then quite deftly step, in the final act, into a more traditional horror-comedy in the form of Dale's fight against Chad, without missing a beat. It also is able to hit some familiar plot beats - namely through the relationship that ends up developing between Dale and Alison - without being obnoxious or lazy about it. It's also a movie that works very well as a lesson about the importance of good communication and about the dangers of profiling too, so props to it for that!

But that being said, this is just a very fun movie. The two leads are very charmingly performed by their actors: Alan Tudyk in particular is a gem as Tucker, having many priceless reactions to the insanity or stupidity around him (a personal favorite of mine is when the police finally get involved, and the two good old boys try desperately to explain themselves - Tudyk's expression when Dale carelessly mentions an unconscious woman in their cabin is gut-bustingly funny).

Dale is also quite an endearing character, being someone sweet and shy; his interactions with Alison managing to range from hilariously tongue-tied to honestly genuinely sweet and supportive. Alison herself, while in many ways the story is really about Tucker and Dale, is still engaging and sweet as a character - you admire her for being the sensible one out of the college kids, and also feel sorry for her as she sees the result of all the misunderstandings and accidents, even when she literally sets people down to try and have them talk things out.

Props must be given to Jesse Moss for his performance by the way. He plays an incredibly nasty character as Chad - a guy who starts out entitled towards Alison and prejudiced towards the hillbillies, and only goes further down the slope from there. It's over the top in all the right ways, and yet manages to be pretty legitimately ugly too; a tricky balance to strike, but one that manages to work in regard to the movie itself.

All in all, I really had good fun with Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It's a movie that manages to be bloody hilarious (emphasis on the blood, especially when there's a woodchipper involved!) and also quite charming and clever too. Lots of fun if you're looking for a good horror-comedy to just kick back and enjoy yourself watching.