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Released by: Magnolia Films
Released on: November 29, 2011.
Director: Eli Craig
Cast: Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden, Jesse Moss
Year: 2010
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The Movie:
Directed by Eli Craig, who co-wrote with Morgan Jurgenseon, 2010's Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil might look like the sort of shitty Larry The Cable Guy redneck comedy jam that represents so much of what's wrong with current day American pop culture but the fact is that this is one of those rare horror comedies (a dreaded subgenre, really, based on the fact that is so frequently fails) that gets it right.
When the film begins, a pair of rednecks named, you guess it, Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), are stocking up on supplies so that they can head out to Tucker's recently purchased vacation home out in the middle of the woods, completely unaware of the cabin's past as the scene of some gruesome murders carried out there some years ago. While stopped, they encounter a group of college kids heading out to get some camping done in the nearby woods, and Dale takes an immediate liking to Allison (Katrina Bowden) - and who can blame him? She's a beautiful blonde with a nice smile and a kind look and so with a little bit of encouragement from Tucker, he makes an awkward pass at her even though he knows she's out of his league. It doesn't work, all it does is instill in the kids that these two hillbillies are probably psycho killers and/or rapists.
Armed with those beliefs, the kids head into the woods and whoop it up, later that night deciding to go skinny dipping in the lake where our two heroes happen to be fishing. When Allison spots them, she figures they're peeping on her, gets freaked out, falls off of a rock and hits her head. Dale heads into the water to save her but her friends assume he's kidnapped her. They're all the more convinced of this when he takes her back to the cabin to help nurse her back to health, and at this point they decide to launch a fairly idiotic assault against Tucker and Dale, with each attack resulting in an accidental death that winds up making Tucker and Dale look like the killers the kids think they are. When a real psychopath turns out to be operating in the area, however, things get even more complicated.
There have been slasher parodies stretching at least back to the eighties (think Saturday The 14th) but rarely do they succeed in skewering the genre as effectively as Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil. By taking the standbys and requisites of the genre like the obligatory scene where the killers drive slowly by their victims making sure to get some quality eye contact, anchor this film in the tried and true formula horror movie fans have seen countless times before. Yet, the comedy here works its way into the story so naturally and so effectively that you wouldn't want it any other way and the movie actually gets pretty clever in how it ties those accidental deaths to Tucker and Dales actions (or more accurately inactions!), making this movie a lot more original than it probably seems it should be.
None of this would work all that well if the characters weren't dead on so it's to Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk that most of the credit goes. They're not only physically perfect for their respective roles but they actually manage to make their hillbillies likeable enough for us to care about. Katrina Bowden is also good here, and not just another pretty face but completely competent in portraying the shift that her character undergoes as she puts aside her initial fears and stereotypes and starts to get to know the guys who really did save her life. Mix into all of this some top notch gore and kill scenes and a few fun plot twists and you wind up with a movie that just completely comes together the way few of its fellow horror comedies ever seem to be able to.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil looks great on Blu-ray. The AVC encoded 2.35.1 widescreen 1080p high definition transfer was taken from a purely digital source and so the image is crisp and clean and as colorful as the sometimes dirty looking sets and backgrounds allow for. Understandably there's no print damage at all. Color reproduction looks perfect in terms of the aesthetic that the movie is working in (which means maybe some slight tinting in a few scenes and some sepia tone effects in the flashbacks) and texture in the various costumes and backdrops at the cabin and in the woods look excellent as well. Black levels are generally good but a few scenes do suffer from some quick and minor crush - thankfully these are infrequent and the image is otherwise top notch.
Also impressive is the English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix, with subtitles in Spanish and closed captions in English only. All in all, this is a rock solid mix with great directional effects and well balanced levels throughout. Channel separation is always strong, from the sound effects to the way that Mike Shields' score is spread out, while dialogue is always crisp and clear in the mix. Bass response is powerful enough to get your attention without burying anything and there are, as you'd expect, no problems at all with any hiss or distortion.
Extras kick off with a commentary from director Eli Craig who is joined here by Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk. If you dug the movie, you'll dig this track as the same sense of humor that makes the movie work drives this commentary as well. All involved take this seriously enough to make it interesting but aren't above having fun with the material, telling some interesting stories about problems that they ran into during the making of the movie and freely admitting that even during the making of the film there were moments that they really didn't think would work in the end. This is a well paced but relaxed track, and like the feature it's got that right mix of humor to keep things fun.
From there, we move onto the featurettes starting with The Making Of Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil. This twelve minute look behind the scenes of the movie is very promotional in nature but it does offer up some on set footage and some cast and crew interviews if you're into that.
Tucker & Dale ARE Evil: The College Kids' Point Of View is an interesting featurette that takes roughly seventeen minutes worth of footage from the movie and rearranges it so that we see all of this play out from, as the title implies, the college kids' point of view. As such, Tucker and Dale don't come across as the nice guys that they do in the movie, they come across as psychopaths. This isn't something that you'll watch more than once but it's worth checking out just for that alternate perspective that sort of gets a bit muddy in the finished version of the movie proper.
Rounding out the extras are a collection of outtakes, some storyboards, an HDNet promo spot that's basically a glorified advertisement for the movie, the movie's original theatrical trailer, trailers for a few other Magnolia releases, animated menus and chapter stops. All of the extras on this disc are presented in high definition.
The Final Word:
Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil turned out to be a Hell of a lot more fun than it probably should have been. Craig's film manages to give us likeable characters, a unique and entertaining story, and a good mix of both laughs and gross out gore scenes which all add up to a horror comedy that actually works. Magnolia's Blu-ray looks and sounds great and it's got some cool extras too. This one is absolutely worth seeking out.
Click on the images below for full size Blu-ray screen caps!
