Do you prefer your horror to have a lot of comedy and satire thrown in? Then “Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil” is just the movie for you! This 2010 film stars Alan Tudyk (“Firefly”) and Tyler Labine (“Reaper”) as the titular characters, a couple of rednecks who take a vacation to fix up a cabin in the woods together.
The film follows our protagonists as they stop on the way to their cabin to pick up supplies at a country gas station. Of course, a group of college kids going out to their own woodsy getaway shows up too, and Dale has such a crush on one of them (Allison, played by Katrina Bowden) that he acts creepy and awkward. From the college students’ point of view, we see the horror movie aspect: a couple of rednecks in the middle of nowhere acting weird. It’s all just so familiar.
As the movie goes on and the teens/20-somethings keep dying – gory deaths at that – the only logical conclusion they would come to in a horror movie is that the creepy rednecks are responsible. But wait! “Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil” flips all of that on its head, as we’re seeing their side of the story. They keep watching dumb college kids killing themselves and they don’t know how to prove they had nothing to do with it. They’re just as freaked out as the remaining students, especially as they’re caring for Allison after she gets a head injury and even more misunderstandings come into play.
This movie is laugh-out-loud funny and especially charming if you’ve watched a lot of slashers and know all the little references and archetypes. It’s great to see Tudyk, Labine and Bowden play off of each other with both horror movie tropes and comedy. While the other actors don’t have the same name recognition, they all do a great job at acting just as you’d expect characters in a horror movie to act, right down to the douchebag named Chad. If you haven’t seen this one and you know you like horror-comedies with gore, check it out!
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Originally hailing from Pennsylvania, Jackie has called Austin home since choosing to attend the University of Texas, where she graduated with a degree in multimedia journalism. She loves spending time with her dogs, writing about pop culture in all its forms and spending time with friends – eating, drinking and doing trivia.