Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

We've all seen the movie a million times, a bunch of dumb college kids go camping and stumble across a mysterious spooky cabin, where they are then picked off one by one by some sort of monster or another. Heck, I just wrote about The Cabin in the Woods a few days ago, which was pretty much the ultimate deconstruction of the genre.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil would actually make a great double feature with The Cabin in the Woods. Though a much sillier movie than Cabin, Tucker & Dale also takes the premise of the camping kids getting killed and turns it on its head. This time, the rednecks aren't the enemy, the prejudice and hysteria of the stupid kids is the real killer.

Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are two good hearted best friends who also happen to be rednecks going on a vacation to a run-down old cabin that Tucker bought with the intention of fixing up. On the way, they encounter the group of college kids, who believe them to be scary inbred hillbilly murderers. When one of the kids, Allison (30 Rock's Katrina Bowden), falls off a dock and hurts her head on a rock, Tucker and Dale rescue her and take her back to the cabin to fix her up. The kids think she's been kidnapped and taken to a torture dungeon or something, and in a panicked attempt to rescue her, begin getting themselves violently killed one by one, through their own clumsiness and idiocy. Tucker and Dale can do nothing but watch these morons pick themselves off.

It's all very cleverly executed. Kind of Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets The Ladykillers. Tucker and Dale are loveable guys, though a little dim. If you think teens behave stupidly in serious horror movies, wait until you see these kids. Their dumbness is exaggerated to a hilarious degree. It's nice to see southern stereotypes busted up a little bit, we northerners can be a little unfair.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil is director Eli Craig's first film, and hopefully it will attain a cult status that will allow him to work some more. He put an interesting spin on well worn territory; not an easy task at all. This is a funny movie with a good heart and plenty of gore, in case the good heart is not enough for you.