Review: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Scream 4 opens today. I wish I could find a way to get excited about that release, but the idea of a fourth installment to an increasingly less-relevant franchise just can't get me in the seat anymore. Sure, I'll catch it on DVD at some point, but why waste money on a big budget retread when the indie world is where the excitement is. Case in point, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, an honest-to-goodness fresh take on the teens-stalked-by-mountain-folk-in-the-woods subgenre. if the film were retitled, it could borrow from Wrong Turn and call itself Wrong Impression.

We first spy the titular heroes in their pick-up truck, driving slowly past an SUV jam-packed with young, hormone-fueled teens on their way to a camping trip. The leering face of Dale (Reaper's Tyler Labine) appears in the passenger seat, giving the entire group the wigguns. Tucker (Firefly's Alan Tudyk) later encourages Dale to approach the beautiful Allison (Katrina Bowden, 30 Rock) at a roadside grocery store, where Dale manages to work up the nerve to talk to her, managing only to creep out the campers more with his nervous behavior and his newly-purchased scythe. Soon, we understand that this group of teens, led by the elitist Chad (Jesse Moss) assumes the worst of Tucker and Dale, who merely want to retire to their recently acquired vacation home - a decrepit cabin in the woods.

Things go from confusing to deadly when Tucker and Dale rescue Allison from the nearby lake after an accident, resuscitating her and taking her back to their cabin when her friends take off into the woods screaming. While Tucker and Dale only want to help, Chad and his gang believe that the pair are intent on killing and eating all of them.

Back at the cabin, Allison awakes, terrified at first, but is quickly won over by Dale's rustic charm and unassuming manner. The pair end up playing trivia board games and bonding while Tucker clears the rotted trees outside with a chainsaw. As you might expect, the sight of Tucker with a chainsaw alarms the teens who have returned to the cabin intent on freeing their assumedly-abducted friend. The body count begins here, as teenager after teenager dies horribly while attempting to free Allison from the clutches of Tucker and Dale, who are left to wrestle with one over-arching question: why are they being terrorized by these college kids?

The movie has more going for it than the central joke of the film, but it's this conceit that makes Tucker & Dale vs. Evil stand head and shoulders over most so-called slashers. By turning the expectations of who the protagonists and antagonists should be on their head, co-writer/director Eli Craig has managed to make a fun, bloody, often hilarious take on the genre without lampooning the genre itself. Instead, he uses the film as a vehicle to send a message of, amazingly, tolerance, communication and understanding.

To satisfy genre purists, I assure you that there is blood, the occasional severed digit, a legendary serial killer and more than one imapling, so the red stuff comes at you more than enough to satisfy your bloodlust, you depraved thing, you. The film also boasts a pretty rockin' score and some great outdoors photography. This may have been a low budget affair, but the movie looks and sounds great.

But let's get back to the stars here - Tucker and Dale. Tudyk and Labine have real chemistry and manage to imbue these characters with such warmth and good will that, at a certain point, you move past the joke and begin to root for these two unlucky bastards to get the hell away from these crazy kids and for Allison to come around to Dale's awkward affection. I liked these guys, with Tucker's misty-eyed joy at having a vacation home of his own and Dale's self-deprecating insistence on his own intellectual shortcomings despite his gift of a photographic memory. Not only are they unlikely heroes, they're also the easiest to root for in some time.

It's hard not to oversell the movie, but this really is one for horror fans to embrace. It's smart and funny and not afraid to be campy without being cynical. It's as good-natured as its protagonists, and that's saying a lot. This is a movie that should be seen by all horror fans, if only for the kids' assault on the cabin, resulting in a fantastic wood chipper gag and a conclusion by Tucker and Dale that's as wrong-headed as it is hysterical. Not since Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon have I come away from a film using all the tropes of a hundred hillbilly slasher films and felt I had seen something unlike anything I had seen before - a joyful, bloody romp.