Tucker and Dale vs Evil

Horror and comedy often go hand in hand for some reason, specifically in the slasher genre. You'd be hard pressed to find a Friday the 13th or Halloween without at least a sarcastic smirk or quip meant as a little wink at the audience. Horror and comedy have been mixing together so well for so long that it's even spawned into it's own sub-genre. My favorite examples of which include Return of the Living Dead, Dead and Breakfast, Evil Dead 2, Behind the Mask: The Rise and Fall of Leslie Vernon and of course Shaun of the Dead, among others. Well add another one to the list kids, I finally got a chance to see Tucker and Dale vs Evil, and I laughed my ass off.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil is about two backwoods hicks, Tucker and Dale, who are on their way to their vacation lake home to begin work on fixing it up, and do a little fishing while they're there when they run into a group of college kids who are also on their way to the lake to do what college kids do at lakes. The first night there, Tucker and Dale are out fishing when the kids decide to go skinny dipping, there's an accident and one of the girls hits her head and falls into the water. Dale dives in to save her, and they bring her back to the cabin to bandage her up, and wait for her friends to come looking for her in the morning. Of course the kids assume that Tucker and Dale are backwoods murderers and have kidnapped their friend, so they hatch their own plan to rescue her. This leads to one hilarious mishap after another, as the kids continuously rush toward the cabin, and Tucker and Dale, and it always ends in disaster for them. For example, the first kid that attempts to approach the cabin is met by Tucker who is running frantically with a chainsaw above his head toward him, because he had been out back cutting down a tree and cut through a bee hive. Of course the kid doesn't see any bees, he just sees a hillbilly screaming at the top of his lungs running toward him with a chainsaw. Almost every one of these meetings leads to one of the kids getting killed, and Tucker and Dale believe that what they're witnessing is some sort of suicide pact being carried out among the teens.

I don't want to spoil any of the kills, but believe me most of them are hilarious. The premise of course changes a bit in the third act, and as per usual with these movies all is not what it seems. One of the kids has a tie to the cabin, and previous murders that happened there 20 years ago. I kinda felt like this little twist was a bit unnecessary, but it at least explained the behavior of that particular character, so I didn't hold it against the movie. Tucker and Dale are played by Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyke respectively and do a great job playing off of each other. Labine, or "Sock from Reaper" as I've taken to calling him, is especially good as the goodhearted goof Dale. I'm really becoming a fan of his, from Reaper to one of my favorite cameos in movie history (hug it, chug it, FOOTBAWLLL! All NITE!).

It's impossible not to recommend Tucker and Dale vs Evil to horror/comedy fans. It's overall lighthearted in tone, and leads more toward the comedy side of the genre, but there are enough horror elements here to entertain people who prefer the other half of the equation. Personally, I think it's probably the best horror/comedy I've seen since Shaun of the Dead. I liked it that much. Definitely give it a look if you're interested in a little comedy in your horror movie.