- Directed by Eli Craig
- Written by Eli Craig, Morgan Jurgenson
- Stars Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1t8OZn_uhE
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is an excellent horror comedy. It takes the idea that the killer hillbillies in a horror movie are actually the misunderstood good guys. So much depends on your point of view. It’s bloody and violent and very fun.
Spoilery Synopsis
We cut to a couple of true crime podcasters, but they’re both very quickly killed. The credits roll as we shift to a car full of teenagers in West Virginia. Chad makes a hillbilly joke. Their car is passed by two sketchy-looking rednecks in a pickup truck. When they stop to buy beer, those same two guys are there. It all looks very “Deliverance”-y.
At the store, Tucker and Dale, the hillbillies, admire the young college students. Dale likes the girls, but he doesn’t have the self-confidence to talk to them. He walks over to the girls while absent-mindedly carrying a huge scythe; he laughs nervously, and the kids all think he’s some kind of maniac.
Tucker talks to Dale about his self-confidence problems. We soon see that these guys are really deep in the region of “It’s not what it looks like,” when they get pulled over by a cop. They get to the “vacation home” that Tucker just bought, and it’s quite the fixer-upper. It’s a cabin in the woods, to be sure. There are bones hanging from the ceiling and news clippings about serial killings on the walls. They narrowly avoid a booby trap, and we see just how ignorant these two are about what they’ve stumbled into.
Not far away, Chad and the gang talk about “The Memorial Day Massacre” twenty years ago that happened right here. We get a flashback to when that all happened. It’s like every serial-killer-in-the-woods movie we’ve ever seen.
Tucker and Dale are out on the lake fishing. A bunch of the campers go skinny dipping. One of the girls has an accident, and Dale rescues her. One of the other campers sees this. “We’ve got your friend,” Dale yells, and they all run away.
Allison wakes up in the morning at the cabin, and she’s terrified of Dale and his pancakes. The teenagers walk through the woods and blow the whole thing out of proportion.
Dale explains what really happened to Allison, and she understands. They make friends and start playing board games together. Meanwhile, Tucker is outside working with his chainsaw as Mitch, one of the kids, approaches. Tucker cuts into a bee nest and reacts badly, terrifying everyone with his chainsaw antics. Mitch gets impaled on a tree branch and dies. The body is soon found by the other kids, who assume the hillbillies are murderers; Chad says, “It’s us versus them!”
Tucker walks back to the cabin, and he’s covered in bee welts. Dale pulls the stingers out, one by one, and Tucker talks about how afraid Mitch looked when he saw the bees.
The kids hide and overhear Dale talking about “beating the crap out of Allison and finishing her off.” He means, of course, at their trivia game, but they don’t hear that part. The Tucker starts working on cleaning up the dead wood around the cabin with their wood-chipping machine. Dale and Allison dig an outhouse hole, and the kids think they’re making her dig her own grave. Two of the college students attack the men, and that goes hilariously badly for both of them. Allison is knocked unconscious in the action.
Tucker is amazed that one of the college students ran and jumped into his wood chipper. Dale talks about one of them impaling himself on a spear right in front of him. “This is a suicide pact,” Tucker speculates. They could call the police, but what would they say? Who would they believe?
Out in the woods, Chad suggests that this is an amazing opportunity to kill some rednecks. The rest of the kids run into the sheriff, and they drive back to investigate. Meanwhile, Tucker and Dale try to unplug the wood chipper.
Tucker tells the cop, “We have had a doozy of a day. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, these kids started killing themselves all over my property.” They go inside, and the sheriff runs right into the booby trap from before. Chad starts shooting at the guys, and Tucker blames the whole thing on Dale.
When Chad takes Dale’s dog as a hostage, the guys fight back with a nail gun. He’s only a distraction as Tucker frees the dog, which leads to another chase through the woods. They soon catch Tucker and hang him upside-down from a tree.
Allison wakes up, and Dale tells her what’s been going on as he cries. She offers to clear up all the misunderstandings and goes outside, where she sees the carnage. She finds Tucker’s shirt with a couple of fingers inside. He soon tracks down Tucker, who says, “This vacation sucks.”
Chad and the other kids show up, and Allison explains it all to them, but Chad just wants to kill some hillbillies. They think she’s got “Stockholm Syndrome.” Chad’s just a psychopath.
Allison gets Chad and Dale to sit down and talk, all diplomatic-like. Chad explains how his parents were attacked in the Memorial Day Massacre twenty years ago. The rednecks of the time captured his mother and killed his father.
Outside, Jason and Chloe have been waiting to come inside and save the day with a weed whacker. They break in and kill Naomi by accident. Chad accidentally sets Jason on fire. The whole cabin ends up exploding, much to Tucker’s dismay. “I’m a terrible therapist,” whines Allison.
Chad gets up and comes outside with his axe. Tucker, Dale, and Allison run to the truck and drive away– right into a tree. While they’re unconscious, Chad takes Allison away.
Tucker gives Dale a rousing speech about how Dale’s not as stupid and ugly as he thinks he is. Tucker’s badly hurt, so it’s up to Dale to save Allison.
Chad has Allison literally tied to a lumber mill saw; he’s burned and crazy now. Dale decides to embrace his inner “killer hillbilly.” Chad starts up the buzzsaw as he and Dale fight.
Allison finds a newspaper article that explains that Chad’s parents were the Memorial Day Murderers; it’s all genetic! “Chad– you’re half hillbilly!” Dale then kills Chad with chamomile tea.
The news reporters are calling it a “mass suicide,” and also that there was a killer who was never found. Tucker, in the hospital, asks Dale about Allison. They’re going bowling, so it’s a date! Also, Dale has learned not to help people now.
Brian’s Commentary
It’s all a comedy of misunderstanding, of course, but it uses all the horror movie tropes. The gore and deaths are really well done, and always funny. It uses all the killer-in-the-woods tropes, but it’s totally turned around since the kids are the bad ones.
Tucker and Dale are hilarious, and we absolutely should have had half a dozen sequels by now. It’s very possibly my favorite horror-comedy.
Kevin’s Commentary
This is really excellent. There are lots of laughs, and I liked it even better this second viewing. The script is great, and Tucker and Dale are perfectly cast.