"Tucker and Dale vs Evil"

Over the weekend I saw what was, at first glance, arguably the stupidest movie I’ve ever seen.

“Tucker and Dale vs Evil” is a horror movie parody about a pair of blue-collar aAppalachianites who have just bought a new vacation cabin which had, unbeknownst to them, previously belong to a family of serial killers.  Both comedy and tragedy ensue when they cross paths with a group of overtly stereotypical college students who happen to mistake them for “Deliverance”-esque sadistic rapist killers.

Wikipedia defines ‘parody’ as a ‘work meant to mock, comment on or trivialize an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of satirical or ironic imitation’

Wikipedia also defines ‘horror’ and ‘terror’ as two aspects of a horrifying experience; ‘terror’ being the dread in anticipation of the event, and ‘horror’ being the revulsion in reaction to the event.

Parody is a cornerstone of comedy, and has been a part of literature nearly as long as there has been literature; a part of theatre nearly since the first actor stood on stage to recite words as an actor; a part of film nearly since the first camera rolled.  In fact, much of the early days of comedy in film were parody; from the Keystone Cops to Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” to Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” (one of many acts to parody Adolf Hitler).  These and many more parodies from this era are regarded as some of the most popular and renowned comedies of all time, including Abbott and Costello’s ‘Who’s On First’ and many of the works of the Marx Brothers, namely “A Night in Casablanca” and “A Night At The Opera”.

Horror has also always been a part of literature since Cain killed Abel; a part of theatre since  since Oedipus learned the truth of his fate; a part of film since Count Orlock rose to walk the night.  The earliest horror films were stories of ghosts and monsters; adaptations of literature which the world knows as ‘gothic’; the nineteenth century creations of Stevenson and Doyle, Shelley and Stoker, Poe and Wells.  Many of the films that we think of today as artful classics, including “Dracula and “Frankenstein”, are horror movies.

Almost as traditional is the act of combining these two, applying comedy in the face of terror, horror and tragedy, known as ‘gallows humor’.  In “Hamlet”, Shakespeare presents the gravedigger’s conversation as comic relief from the string of deaths which plague the play. In film, the very same monsters which permeated horror cinema in the early days of the silver screen are, not long after, lampooned by sharing that screen with comedy greats Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Some of Bob Hope’s earliest films would include horror comedies “The Cat and The Canary” and “The Ghost Breakers”. Even the aptly nicknamed ‘Master-of-Suspense’, Alfred Hitchcock would use comedy throughout his films, particularly in “Rear Window”, but most heavily in “The Trouble With Harry”, which is a movie about a small number of people in a small town who each think that they are responsible for the death of the title character, and who continuously and inadvertently counter each other’s efforts to dispose of his body.

In recent years, horror comedies and horror parodies have gained popularity.  As with any genre, there are, as George Carlin would say, “a few winners, a whole lotta losers”.  Most are the direct-to-dvd efforts of “National Lampoons” wannabees, but a few, like “Scream”, “Tremors”, and “Cabin In The Woods”, are not only very funny, but are solidly frightening and entertainingly clever as well, each sending up different subgenres of horror, and each in very different ways.

“Tucker and Dale vs Evil” falls into this company. While you might expect it to send up “Deliverance” and other, more brutal 70’s horror films, such as “I Spit On Your Grave” or “The Hills Have Eyes”, the movie instead lampoons a particular cliche of horror movies which I would call ‘stupid teenagers going camping’, which is a staple setup for numerous horror films and horror film franchises (“Friday the 13th”, “Sleepaway Camp”). Movies of this genre often sought to serve as cautionary tales, pointing out ‘this is what you don’t do’, yet showing no causal relationship between having sex, smoking pot and drinking beer and getting eviscerated by an axe wielding, hockey mask wearing undead psychopath.  “Tucker and Dale” follows these standards of horror, albeit this time with tongue firmly planted in cheek, and this time illustrates causal relationships between being stupid when you’re camping and getting killed.

It teaches important lessons, like ‘Don’t dive headlong at someone standing in front of the business end of a woodchipper.’, ‘Don’t look down the barrel of a gun to figure out why it won’t fire’, ‘Don’t run a chainsaw through a bees nest’, or (and I cannot stress this one enough) ‘Don’t throw moonshine on a fire’.  The movie also offers some fun asides, like “He’s heavy for half a guy”, and one-liners, like “I shoulda knowd that if a guy like me talked to a girl like you, somebody’d end up dead.”

The end of the second act drags a little, with the twists and turns at that point feeling a little forced.  But the third act is solid, with a lead-in that feels a little like the ‘Groovy’ scene from “Evil Dead 2”. In all, I have very few complaints.  However, be prepared for an over-abundance of stupid from the teenagers as well as the titular characters.

If you can get past that and just enjoy it, “Tucker and Dale vs Evil” is a very funny movie and a lot of fun.