Tucker & Dale vs Evil is a horror comedy that is probably the most well suited movie of our time for both people into comedies and horror movies. Horror buffs will love the horror innuendo that is set to about an 8 on a scale of 10. The comedy bits are dark comedy with some stealing the spotlight, similar to how it was handled in Cabin in the Woods, another horror spun movie. Tucker & Dale goes a different route though, whereas that other classic horror attempted to allude to its involvement in the horror genre as a whole, Tucker & Dale goes the other route. The anti-horror route so to speak.
The beginnings of the shenanigans
The opening of Tucker & Dale vs Evil is little different than what you in store for. For one, it starts as a “found footage” film, similar to The Blair Witch Project. That is not how the rest of the movie is though. Just keep that opening in mind for later. We meet a group of college students that are on their way to enjoy a camping trip in West Virginia. On the road the yget their first glimpse of Tucker & Dale who are not exactly oozing what the students would call “friendliness”. They shake off this encounter and continue their trip thinking nothing can go wrong. It does. No one packed the beer. This forces the college students to stop off at a “last chance” gas station that has obviously seen better days. Here they meet Tucker & Dale again, this time up close and personal much to the shock of the girls in the group. We get a bit of character development for Tucker as he is shown to be peeping tommish on a subliminal level - he is just insecure, not a real creeper. We also find out that Dale is supposedly the “ladies man” of the duo and is behind coaxing Tucker into at least attempting to talk with one of the college girls he is smitten with.Just what the hell happened
This goes as well as you might expect it to when people try to break through out of their cast in society. This is an often experimented with story trope in horror movies with a new twist - it is not one of the females that is obviously going to die that is attempting to get one up on the killer by hitting on him and other physical attempts at prolonging their lives. Nope, here we see it from the angle of the “weird” guy, the suspected killer if you will, and we see things from his awkward point of view. Hint, the situation doesn’t go as Tucker had hoped. With that out of the way, the college students on their way up the road, our unwitting protagonists get on the road as well - their vacation home is not going to fix itself up. We get the usual introduction of an authority figure that is strictly by the book and he automatically develops a dislike of the hillbilly buddies. This scene is played out quite funny and helps set the mood for the rest of the movie as things simply don’t go as anyone planned. Not even the authorities. The good ole boys finally make it to their cabin in the woods an the college students make it to their camping area. All is good. Somewhat.Horror movie tropes, alive and well
This is where the insanity entails. First, the college students decide to tell stories around a camp fire while some smoke marijuana. The stories are cut short till we get the one that happened in those very woods, 20 years ago to the day. Yep, they went with that trope as well. The new vacation home owners are busy giving us a tour of their newly purchased “perfect” cabin. It is far from perfect but that is not for us to dictate to the buddies. It is theirs and they are happy with it. Not being so close to the situation we, as viewers, can easily see how this cabin resembles just about every cabin ever seen in a horror movie to date. Seriously, if there was a picture in the dictionary for “cabin” it would be Dale’s cabin. Later in the night is when things start going wrong. The new home owners are out fishing in their boat after dark while the college students decide to go skinny dipping in the lake. Tucker continues his character being timid development by not wanting to take a peek at his girl crush who is stripping on top of a nearby rock. Dale has no inhibitions and wants to take a closer look. This causes the girl, later known as Allie, to slip and fall.And it begins
Here is where the misunderstandings start occurring. The college students see Tucker & Dale pulling Allie into their boat. From a distance this certainly does look bad, almost like the buddies were indeed evil and attempting to kidnap the slippery footed college student. Tucker & Dale attempt to alert the other students to the situation but the youngsters are far too set in their mindset as to what was happening. Allie was a goner and they had to do something about it. Allie is taken to the cabin and put up in a bed to rest till morning. She is apprehensive at first about the true intentions of Tucker & Dale but eventually comes around, realizing her friends and her were completely wrong. Dale is out back working on cutting dead wood up and clearing the area when he saws into a beehive hidden in the log. Unsurprisingly, at this same time the college students choose a member of their group to go up to the cabin and attempt to rescue Allie. Just as he gets to the porch, Dale comes running around with a running chainsaw that he is flailing around trying to fight off the bees. This causes the college students to take off running, thinking Dale is after them.Foreshadowing, homages, references galore
This scene is reminiscent of the final scene of Texas Chainsaw Massacre which involved the main baddie literally flinging the still running chainsaw around in the air. Nice touch and it was easy to miss in Tucker & Dale vs Evil if you were not familiar with that horror movie staple. I am sure I am missing a lot of references here as I am not what you would call a horror movie aficionado. I have my regulars I will watch and certain types of horror movie I enjoy but I don’t watch all of them that come out. Even watching Tucker & Dale vs Evil was an accident for me. It started playing one day when I had Hulu on for background noise. I liked what I saw and started it over and now have seen it a few times.It is all a misunderstanding
There are hapless mistakes left and right on both sides in this movie. Mistakes that make both groups believe the other is the evil one in the situation. Continuing the scene from above, when Dale had the chainsaw, that college student is running through the woods with Dale catching up, and passing him, as the bees close in. The student ends up impaled on a fallen tree. As he dies, a bee lands on his nose and a look of realization comes across his face as this little creature makes its presence known. He seems to understand that Dale was not attacking or chasing him but running from the bees. This all happens just as he dies and he is not able to pass this information onto his friends, to their detriment.Don't judge a book, or hillbilly or college student, by their cover
The whole movie is just a series of unfortunate events for everyone involved. Almost like the cabin is cursed. That is the best way to sum up Tucker & Dale vs Evil - a series of unfortunate events. There is just no other way to describe this horror comedy - at least not as short a description that suits the movie well. The ending is even funny and suitable for the events we just saw laid out.For those wondering, Tucker was a co-star in the "ended way too soon" television series, Reaper.
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