R, 1 hr. 26 min. Directed By:
Eli
Craig. Release Date: Sep 30, 2011.
DVD Release Date: Nov 29, 2011.
Horror comedy is a rough trade. Lots of folks have tried and failed, and
those that manage it tend to do it either accidentally or through spoof, which
is kind of the mime of comedy. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil actually
manages to pull it off pretty well, although this particular variant of comedy
is something that you might get if you tried to breed The Three Stooges with The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The same
kind of funny that occurs organically in my favorite scene in Pulp
Fiction, the one where Travolta shoots the guy in the back seat of the
car because Samuel L. Jackson was driving too fast when they hit a speed bump.
I
won’t say that the merger of
horror and comedy is flawless. I also
won’t say that all of the scenes intended to be funny are. Both of
those statements would be lies. But, they hit the majority of their
marks the
majority of the time. What’s left
follows the vague formula in any horror movie involving a group of kids
on a
road trip for the weekend to some Cabin
in the Woods. If this movie has
a fault, it’s predictability, all the way through to the end credits. The story’s “twist” when it appears with a
Shyamalanic boom, has been foreshadowed to within an inch of its life and isn’t
a surprise to well, I think anyone.
Two cast members save this film from
abject failure: Alan Tudyk (who seems to
be brilliant in just about any role he’s cast in so long as he can be quirky)
and Tyler Labine, who play the eponymous Tucker and Dale, respectively. These two are so believably good-natured in
their roles as bumbling hicks trying (and failing) to make a few new friends that
it’s hard not to like them, even when they do things that accidentally cause
others to well, lose their lives, or misinterpret events so soundly that you
can’t figure out how two groups of people speaking the same language could end
up in the situations like that.
As good as Labine and Tudyk are,
that’s how terrible the “college kids” are.
Most of them are second- or third-stringers that you’ve seen playing
similar roles in the past. Chelan
Simmons seems to be popping up in every straight-to-video and failed TV pilot
in variations on the same role: stupid,
spoiled, mean, and sort of slutty in a way that’s probably meant to be, um,
stimulating, but really fails. Jesse
Moss’ performance was so terrible that I hope he didn’t get a performance bonus
for his role and I hope he doesn’t expect to keep working in the biz if that’s
as good as it gets.
Tucker
and Dale vs. Evil is funny, despite its flaws. At 90 minutes, this is the kind of movie that’s
great for when you’re doing something else, but are looking for background
movie. I also suggest that people with
more time and creative energy than myself might be able to put together a fine
drinking game out of this… but I’m way too old for that kind of thing myself.
