Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

After a lifetime of horror movies, most of them dumb as dirt but entertaining nonetheless, it’s refreshing to find one that’s actually intelligent. Wes Craven’s SCREAM movies get a lot of credit for their “smart, new” approach to the slasher genre, but for my money the smartest slasher movie out there is BEHIND THE MASK: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Well, finally, there’s a new contender on the block for most intelligent horror movie.

2010’s TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL was written and directed by Eli Craig, and it takes a very unique and fresh approach to the killer hillbilly story.

What starts as a typical camping trip for 9 college kids, quickly turns into a battle of good vs. evil when they run into a pair of backwoods hillbillies in the woods and, before they know it, their friends are dropping like flies. One is impaled on a tree branch running away from a chainsaw-wielding redneck, one gets a spear in the throat, another is fed through a woodchipper. And then, just when they get the cops on the scene and the kids think they’re in the clear, the cop gets a board full of nails right in the skull.

Chad tried to warn them of the Memorial Day Massacre that took place in these very woods twenty years earlier. Luckily for them, he knows an opportunity to destroy evil when he sees it, and Chad is determined that no more of his friends will die. Not by a Weed-Eater to the face, not by turpentine thrown on a fire and not by a gunshot to the face.

And this is the genius of Craig’s movie. Because, while all of this is true, when you get down to it, things in TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL is really a matter of perspective.

It’s hard to review this movie without giving away too much. I had read before seeing it that it was important to see the movie with no prior knowledge of the story, so that’s what I did. But I usually do a little research into the movies I watch before I see them, in case there’s anything particularly interesting I want to keep an eye out for. However, for TUCKER AND DALE, it was the right call. But with that in mind, how do I write a review and still manage to keep things fresh for new viewers?

I can mention that Eli Craig’s script is smart and funny without a single line of dialogue wasted. Everything serves to either move the plot or develop the characters. The acting was spot-on for this type of movie. It’s not often I meet a character in a movie and immediately hope he gets an ax to the face, but this is definitely one of those times. The effects were just graphic enough to be interesting, but not gratuitous and certainly not overdone.

I’ve been a fan of Tyler Labine since seeing him in “Invasion” back in 2005 (it’s not everyone who can look so intimidating but still inject so much heart into a role), and Alan Tudyk is, simply, one of the great unheralded geniuses of Hollywood, and while Craig’s script and direction made this movie work, it was the timing and compatibility of Labine and Tudyk that made it great. I don’t know if these guys were friends off screen, but they have a chemistry that can’t be faked, I don’t care how good an actor you are.

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL is, finally, a movie made by a cast and crew who not only care about what they’re making, but are smart enough to do it right, and to make it entertaining and, while the story isn’t necessarily original, they’ve made it feel brand new in their take on the subject.

This movie is a wild ride with twists and turns you think you see coming, but at the last second Craig veers left and the bottom drops out and suddenly that course you thought you were predicting is no longer relevant. This is the kind of movie that makes you love movies again, simple as that.

Recommend this product? Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older