By Robert Scucci
| Published 9 seconds ago
As an avid fan of horror comedies with an endless desire to watch every single movie in the genre, I’m almost ashamed to admit that I only just watched 2010’s Tucker & Dale vs. Evil for the first time this past weekend. I’m just one person with blind spots and side quests, and I must have scrolled past the title at least 100 times over the years without ever fully committing to it. I was briefly in a state of mourning because it’s such a funny movie that I’ve missed out on years of laughter. Now that I finally know what it’s all about, this will absolutely be an annual viewing for obvious reasons.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil works so well because of how downright stupid it is. It’s like The Cabin in the Woods, except there’s no secret council of corporate goons running the show. Instead, we get a bunch of college kids who systematically slaughter themselves by accident, all thanks to a simple miscommunication. This is exactly the kind of territory I love spending time in, where a misunderstanding snowballs into catastrophic results.
Why Are They Always Named Chad?!
Centering on a group of college kids led by Chad (Jesse Moss), Tucker & Dale vs. Evil starts out like most slashers do. Nine college kids want to go camping, and most of them are probably going to die. After a brief encounter with two hillbillies named Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) on the way out to the lake, the kids are already on heightened alert, especially Chad, who kicks off the night by telling a story about a hillbilly massacre that happened decades ago while the group sits around the fire.
Tucker and Dale are ultimately harmless, though they fit the stereotype of the type of backwoods guys you’d expect to see in Deliverance. Coincidentally, they’re heading to the same area Chad and his friends are camping in, but for a much less sinister reason. They’ve purchased a rundown lakefront cabin and plan to renovate it. While fishing, Tucker and Dale witness Allison (Katrina Bowden) undressing before going skinny dipping. Startled, Allison slips, hits her head, and knocks herself unconscious. Chad and his friends assume Tucker and Dale are kidnapping her and immediately flee the scene, because that’s apparently what good friends do when they’re led by someone named Chad.
Allison eventually befriends Dale after realizing just how harmless he really is. He feels genuinely terrible about startling her and causing her fall, and he does everything he can to nurse her back to health in the cabin while Tucker focuses on various household projects. Meanwhile, the college kids begin planning an ambush on Tucker and Dale.
An Exercise In Escalation
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil escalates to the point of absurdity because everyone in this fiction is incredibly stupid, our protagonists included. Allison even tells Dale that she wants to become a psychiatrist because she sincerely believes most of the world’s problems stem from miscommunication. She’s not wrong. Chad and his friends repeatedly attempt to raid Tucker and Dale’s cabin, only to kill themselves through increasingly bizarre freak accidents, while Tucker and Dale come to believe the kids are involved in some kind of mass suicide pact. In their minds, it’s the only explanation that makes sense.
The gags in this film are so stupid you can’t help but guffaw. Tucker, while brandishing a chainsaw, accidentally cuts through a beehive, causing him to flail and spin around like Leatherface. One of the kids panics and runs off, only to impale himself on a tree branch. Every single death in Tucker & Dale vs. Evil follows this same logic, and they only get more ridiculous as the body count rises. Tucker and Dale aren’t directly responsible for any of these deaths in the conventional sense, so they just continue going about their business because, at the end of the day, they genuinely haven’t done anything wrong.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil isn’t a movie that requires much brainpower to enjoy. Its premise is inherently absurd, and all of its entertainment value comes from a steadily escalating series of miscommunications that results in an absolute bloodbath. If you’re looking for a slasher where the supposed villains are actually the nicest people you’ll ever meet, you can stream Tucker & Dale vs. Evil on Hulu as of this writing.
