Review

Best friends Tucker and Dale have purchased a holiday home that needs quite a bit of work. But the lads are willing, fuelled by beer, and the promise of some scenery via the co-eds who are camping across the lake. Naturally things don't go to the idyllic backwoods Appalachian plan when the duo rescue one of the co-eds from drowning, and in the mother of all mix ups find themselves knee deep in dead college kids.

Seems the college crowd think Tucker and Dale are backwoods psychopaths, while Tucker thinks the kids are on a death wish. As the body count mounts, Dale finds time for some romance, and Tucker finds he can't keep suicidal youth from his wood chipper. Can the two friends survive the onslaught of the college kids, or will this be one cabin in the woods that will drip with redneck blood?

As I keep saying, it's bloody hard to get horror comedy right, and if we have to be brutally honest here then getting a spoof on the slasher/backwards massacre sub-genre has proven beyond about every movie maker who has given it a try. Show me a comedy take on a slasher epic and I'll show you a half arsed yank attempt at humour that leaves the audience wondering why the people that created the movie actually got paid for making the bollocks they have just sat through. It seems when it comes to the knife meeting the flesh no one can get the laugh track happening. That is until Eli Craig delivered up Tucker and Dale vs Evil, a movie that does for the backwoods sharp implement shenanigans what Shaun of the Dead did for the zombie movie.

Icon once again deliver a remarkably brilliant dark genre flick that might otherwise not have seen the light of day in this part of the world.

Admittedly I had been anticipating this movie after getting a heads up that something interesting was heading out of the Indie studios, but I wasn't prepared for just how good the flick turned out to be. I'm putting it alongside Shaun, Evil Aliens, and Peter Jackson's Braindead, as one of the best horror comedies ever made. Simply put this one rocks the house down, fixes it up, and then bashes it into dereliction again! If you don't have a wide grin plastered over your face by the end of Tucker and Dale's trials and tribulations then you have already become a victim of the actual psycho killer in the ' mix.

Without going into too much detail, and obviously plot spoilers, Director Craig and team have their horror on, are hitting the tropes and giving out large winks to the audience. The movie is jammed pack with references for those who have their slasher radar out. I was picking up on nods to Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Wrong Turn, just for starters. I don't have room here to list every wink at the audience, watch the movie and find your own references. Equally Craig has the whole situation down pat, what with the backwoods rednecks who manage to convey both a latent danger and the slightly sour smell of grunge, and the teenagers who would be hard press to rally a combined IQ of about a hundred. You are expecting the usual "I'll be right back" moments, yet Craig wise to the cynical modern audience, by passes the normal easy targets for his situation comedy and hits the high notes with scenes that will have you laughing out loud. Yes we have "a bus load of idiots", but no Craig isn't aiming at the easy targets most attempts at this sort of comedy limited themselves to.

What really set's Tucker and Dale vs Evil apart from the usual mundane comedy entries however is Director Craig's ability to dial in what all good horror Directors should be eating up rather than completely missing. Craig has two very likable leads that the Audience is going to identify with immediately, well okay who should appeal in that sort of clumsy backwoods fashion. You would be surprised how many Directors don't get that a good dark genre movie needs characters the Audience can relate to. I was cheering on Tucker and Dale throughout as their good intentions were construed as murderous intent. About the only way Craig could have improved on this would have been by keeping the hillbilly motives hidden from the audience, but then that would have undermined a heck of a lot of the inherent humour.

The other thing Craig gets right is the twist in the final block of the movie. I didn't see it coming even though the prologue pointed directly at it, shows how much remedial viewing I need to do yo. Craig ties things up nicely in a fashion that would have even slasher auteurs like Cunningham nodding their heads in approval.

I guess I should point out that while there is some clever dialogue, Tucker and Dale get all the choice one liners, the movie operates more as a situational comedy in that sort of "let the blood run free" fashion the Monty Python troupe employed during their semi regular piss takes on Sam Peckingpal movies. So if people impaling themselves on tree branches, diving into wood chippers, and doing a Wiley E Coyote with a loaded pistol, isn't your idea of humour then there's probably a Rev Fred Nile approved drawing room comedy available with your name on it instead. I had a hoot with the whole thing, the wood chipper scene is the funniest gore moment I've seen since a combine harvester was used to good effect in Evil Aliens, and was giggling like my old maiden aunt that we keep locked up in the attic.

Surprisingly I found Director Eli Craig not only turned on a movie with a huge humour content that will appeal to local and foreign audience, but that he also knew a thing or two about making a dark genre outing that puts Directors like Rob Zombie to shame. I had a hoot with Tucker and Dale vs Evil, it's on my recommended Halloween movie list, and would quite happily sit through the flick again. There's something intrinsically appealing about both Tucker and Dale as they wade through the increasing levels of college kid blood, I would certainly be up for another movie featuring the duo. Eli Craig has delivered one of the best horror comedies of recent years, if you miss this one then don't be telling me you are a horror fan.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil is being distributed in Australia by Icon, who once again prove they have a knack for picking dark genre movies. You can scope out more details on the movie by visiting Icon's home site. The DVD should be available at your local retail outlet, yes add it to your collection, or via one of the rental options if you must.