Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

I don't generally like spoof films. If it is a National Lampoon spoof, I am not inclined to enjoy it.  They have spoofed 300, the Scream movies and clusters of formula films, borrowing a little bit from each.  If it has a title like Teen Movie or Scary Movie, I will make the extra effort not to see it.  But not all spoof films are created equal.  One of the best I can recall was the film Hot Fuzz, which I found to be brilliant.  That is the category I would use to pigeon hole Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, a Sundance Film Festival release in 2010 that was just released in theaters this past weekend.  You may have to search hard to find it due to limited release.  Check your local independent theaters first.   

In addition to National Lampoon's sophomoric spoofs, I also tend to avoid slasher films.  I know enough about them to know that there is a whole subset of slasher films from the backwater where helpless teens are stranded...and hunted by the locals.  Tucker and Dale vs. Evil takes on the challenge of turning these formula films into something enjoyable, turning the genre on its head.

Dale (Tyler Labine) and Tucker (Alan Tudyk) are a couple of West Virginia hillbillies with a dream.  Tucker has recently purchased a "fixer-upper" above Moore Lake.  It is a dream.  He and his buddy Dale are heading up to do some fishing and enjoy their vacation spot.  There plans for a peaceful week are disrupted when they cross paths with a group of teenagers heading out to the woods to party.

The "college kids" seem to have formed some sort of suicide pact.  Dale and Tucker are confused at their dangerous antics, but struggle to understand the misguided kids.  Their fate is intertwined with the group when they are forced to save one of the kids who falls into the lake where they are fishing.  They take the girl, Allison (Katrina Bowden) back to their cabin where they nurse her back to health.  In the meantime, all hell breaks loose in the woods.  Will they survive the onslaught of deranged college kids?  What do the kids want?  Tucker and Dale must stick together while Allison tries to negotiate a peaceful solution to their problems.

Director Eli Craig created the screenplay for Tucker and Dale vs. Evil along with Morgan Jurgenson.  The duo have very little writing experience, each with one prior screenplay to their credit.  This surprised me because I found the writing to be exceptional.  I enjoyed the dialogue, which was playful, yet carefully constructed.  While predictable at times, the inevitable unfolded with a comic brilliance.  I laughed out loud at the visual gags as well as some a few of the lines.  The writing is also set apart from the sophomoric humor of other films by conducting some character development.  Instead of relying on vague references to past events, the writers actually use the characters to engage the audience.  The character's were worth watching.  While a film like this is always going to be contrived, it didn't feel contrived while I was watching.

I recognized a couple of the cast members, but this film has not big names.  The film looked like it was shot on a modest budget, but didn't feel cheap.  Part of the quality came from the acting, which was surprisingly palatable.  Not necessarily exceptional, but solid.  Labine and Tudyk were awesome as the redneck heroes and had great chemistry with a believable Bowden in the female lead.  The antagonist role, played by Jesse Moss, was a bit flat, but Moss did a decent job of it.  Because this film was spoofing the teen angst in real slasher films, an element of dumb choices was built into the characters, creating some flat performances that may have been intentional.  As a whole, I enjoyed the acting and was not distracted by any particularly bad performance.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil received an R rating from the MPAA.  As a slasher spoof, this film has an abundance of blood and gore.  It also makes creative use of instruments of demise.  IMDB indicates that there was brief nudity, but I obviously missed it.  There was a skinny dipping scene that had to be the only place where nudity could have happened, but it must have been extremely brief.  It was also a very dark scene.  Strong language is also a factor in the rating.  I generally buck the MPAA over violence when they rate war movies the same way they rate slashers.  Context matters.  This is a slasher spoof, so it probably deserves the R rating.  The blood and gore could cause nightmares in younger viewers.

What sets a good spoof apart from a bad one has a lot to do with the writing.  There are probably quite a few other factors that distinguish quality from mass produced garbage.  Tucker and Dale vs. Evil has an Indie feel, much like Hot Fuzz.  The characters have more heart, the writing flows more naturally and the visual gags are carefully placed.  The film also doesn't rely on the audience having seen other mass produced formula films to be funny.  The gags are more organic and contextual.  The true test of this film is the laugh factor.  Even in straight comedies, I don't laugh out loud very often.  Other than Superbad, there aren't a lot of comedy films that have really tickled my funny bone.  During this film, I laughed out loud several times.  That is a positive sign.  Four stars.

If Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is not currently playing near you, don't despair.  The Blu-Ray DVD is scheduled for release on November 29th, 2011.

Recommend this product? Yes