TUCKER AND DALE vs EVIL

US, 2010, 89 minutes. Colour.
Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden, Jesse Moss.
Directed by Eli Craig.

A surprise.

If you look at the ads, this film looks like yet another of those ‘Friday 13th young people being sliced and diced’ movie or a variation on Texas Chain Saw Massacres. In fact, it is, but not in the way we might have been expecting. This is a parody and quite a funny one.

The usual group go out into the wilds for one of those spring break vacations. They are shown as pot smokers, drinkers and open about sex and relationships. At a gas station, they encounter Tucker and Dale who look like inbred hillbillies but who are actually two ordinary, friendly men going to repair a holiday house. The students have obviously seen too many horror movies and immediately misunderstand a shy approach by Dale, misinterpret everything that follows, and determine that they have to defend themselves at all costs against these monsters.

We get to know Tucker and Dale and like them, especially poor old Dale (Tyler Labine who is the lab assistant in The Rise of the Planet of the Apes) who looks large and oafish but who is very kindly at heart.

Perhaps it is a one note joke, but it is played well with a nice attention to detail even for preposterous deaths. When Tucker and Dale save a sympathetic psychology student from a river, the rest think she has been abducted and fear the worst. This begins a number of attacks where the students die one after the other in their foolhardy attempts at rescue, jokingly bizarre. It all mounts up as one of the students has a past that motivates him to vengeance (but is shocked to learn what really is his deranged past). At one stage, he is persuaded by the psychology student that she can mediate between him and Dale and the film goes into a tongue-in-cheek counselling session.

Fans who take Friday 13th etc seriously might be shocked at the mockery of the conventions of the genre. Those who have avoided this kind of film may not see the jokes at all and find the deaths more than off-putting. But, those who have found the increasing number of slasher films becoming more pointless as well as gory will enjoy a film that is well-written and funny enough to remind us of how absurd so many of these movies are.

1. A tongue-in-cheek jokey story? Spoof and parody? Appearances versus reality? Offbeat romance?

2. West Virginia, its reputation, the Appalachian mountains, the cabins, the visitors, the hillbillies, inbreeding, the police? The college students in West Virginia?

3. The screenplay and its humour, the nice attitude underlying it? Yet the macabre humour? The parody of Friday the 13th and other films? Misunderstandings, misinterpretation? Sweetness? Madness?

4. The misinterpretation, the college students, seeing too many horror movies, their fears and assumptions, inept acting out of their fears? The blend of the ordinary and the strange? Their age and experience?

5. The opening, the echoes of The Blair Witch Project and the filming of a documentary? The massacre, the woods? The death of the announcer? The later papers and the news? The police and warning Tucker and Dale that the area was evil?

6. The raucous young students, the spring break, pot, beer, their fears of Dale when he approached, their escape, running away? Chad and his story, around the campfire, the massacre – and the irony of how it actually was related to him? Allison and her going for a swim? Ally falling, rescued by Tucker and Dale? Chad’s interpretation, the others and their fears?

7. Tucker and Dale, friends, pleasant, their conversations, pulled up by the police and their chatting with them, refurbishing the holiday house, going fishing, looking at Allison, doing the right thing? The different personalities?

8. Dale as hero, his size, beard, lack of education, yet intelligent, his prodigious memory, putting himself down? The scene with the scythe and his approaching the students, their fear? At work in the house? Tucker and his practical attitudes? Urging Dale to be confident? The house, their hopes, the police warning about evil?

9. Allison and her appearance, the swim, her interaction with Chad and his presumption? Her falling, the rescue, the initial interpretation, the carved note, the irony of the students misinterpreting – Tucker and his sawing and the bees pursing him, his face, running away? The students seeing the digging? The dog, the mass suicide interpretation? The police and the invitation in? The beam with the nails hitting the policeman?

10. Allison, her initial fears, the offer of breakfast, beginning to talk, playing board games, working with Tucker and Dale, knocked out, trying to help? Her being a therapist, mediating between Chad and Dale, the humour of the session, the escape, the capture? The chainsaw?

11. Chad, mad, his advances on Allison, his condemnation of the hillbillies, the mixed motivations, the dog, hogtying Tucker? The therapy, the revelation of his story? The fire in the house? The capture? The saw? The irony of his not liking camomile tea and that being his destruction?

12. The group, the different boys and girls, the males and females, the spear, the falling into the woodchip mixer, burnt in the fire? Inept?

13. Tucker and the dog, caught, losing his fingers, the end and the wrong finger being sewn back on?

14. The climax, the saw, the tea and the camomile? Dale and Allison, bowling – and advice?

15. A satisfying blend of the college break film, Friday the 13th, echoes Deliverance, the touches of gore, yet soft and romantic?