Thursday, April 7, 2011

TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL (a review)



A horror/comedy that flips the horror genre on its head. Stars Alan Tudyk (Serenity/Firefly), Tyler Labine and Katrina Bowden (30 Rocks). Written by Eli Craig and Morgan Jurgenson and directed by Eli Craig.


The story: A group of college students are going up to some remote location where they run into local hillbillies -- the kind who are always serial killers in movies. However, the movie then switches to be about the hillbillies who are just a couple nice guys going up to a cabin to fix it up as a summer home. However, the kids are convinced that they are serial killers. When one of the girls falls in the water in her attmept to get away from them, they save her from drowning and now the other kids will try to rescue her by any means necessary. Unfortunately their plans backfire and they end up killing off themselves...which only convinces the survivors that the hillbillies really are killers.


Was it good?


YES. It was good -- very good. It just fell a smidgeon short of being great. I mean this movie is THAT CLOSE to being a classic. I would have thought that the concept would be too one-note and it would get boring and repetative, but the writers did a nice job of mixing it up. Specifically, there is a love story between the captured girl (Bowden) and the hillbillie. So why doesn't it get the classic rating? Hmmm. It's hard to say. While the movie didn't feel too one-note, it never reached that second level of awesomeness either. It has the reversal of cliche in the concept, but then everything really does play out as expected. The girl realizes the hillbillies are actually nice, the college guys end up being violent jerks, etc. It all works fine, but for greatness it needs that next smart spin to make the second half be not simply good, but great. Still, the is one of the best horror-comedies I've seen in a long time. I've seen ads saying it's the best since SHAUN OF THE DEAD. I actually liked T&DvE more!


*** STRONGLY RECOMMEND ***

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