TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL (2011)
Director: Eli Craig
Starring: Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden, Jesse Moss

It can be refreshing to add a little bit of comedy into your horror flicks. If you like films like Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, you will get a kick out of Tucker & Dale Vs Evil. Tucker (Tudyk) and Dale (Labine) are two simple guys headed up to a cabin to do some fishing. Their innocence and stupidity leads to a stream of unfortunate events. To start, their unkempt hillbilly appearance at a gas station scares off a group of college friends going to their own cabin. Tucker and Dale pull up to their cabin, and it is about as dilapidated as it gets. They also happen to ignore all of the newspaper clippings hanging up regarding a brutal massacre of a bunch of campers years ago. Later that night the preppy college kids go for a swim in the same area Tucker and Dale are doing some late-night fishing. When one of the college girls (Bowden) slips and falls into the lake, they try to rescue her. Her friends hear them say “We’ve got your friend” and think the dimwitted hillbillies are kidnapping her. That is by no means their intention as they are simply taking her back to their cabin to rest and heal. Each of one of the students start meeting their untimely and gruesome deaths in their attempt to rescue her, but their deaths are not at the hands of Tucker and Dale. It appears bad luck and misfortune keep following Tucker and Dale as they are being mistaken for the deaths of these college kids. Unfortunately they are too stupid to know how to get out of this sticky situation they have gotten themselves in.

I’ve seen plenty of “cabin in the woods” types when it comes to the horror genre. It’s an easy plot device to stick a bunch of dumb teens in a cabin and have ghouls come popping out of the woods. Writer/director Eli Craig has taken a satirical approach to this premise that is fresh and funny. It has a Dumb and Dumber meets The Evil Dead vibe to it as the story is told through the eyes of the two buffoons who are mistaken to be the killers instead of the teenagers’s perspective which we normally see. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine star as our title characters. Tudyk has made a name for himself in a variety of Joss Whedon projects like “Firefly” and Serenity and has does voice-over work for multiple Disney movies. Labine has been seen in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and numerous television sitcoms. The film relies on broad laughs throughout using some of the oldest forms of physical comedy gags for which Tudyk and Labine are perfectly capable of handling. Don’t be confused as this isn’t a stupid movie. There are plenty of bloody moments along the way. As the cocky campers start dying off, their deaths are lavish to say the least. I’ll just tease that Fargo is not the only movie with a wood chipper. Tucker & Dale Vs Evil is funny and cringe-worthy all at the same time. It’s now available to watch through Netflix’s streaming service as well as Hulu. You can also pay for rentals off Xfinity OnDemand and iTunes if you have those apps.

Is It Worth Your Trip to the Movies? It’s bloody enough for your true scary movie fans without being too gruesome or shocking for anyone with a queasy stomach.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 TICKET STUBS