Phil's Horror Watch, Day 22: Phil sees TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL at the Osio Theater-October 22, 2011

My horror film marathon continues with this, Day Twenty-Two! My horror film thirst knows no boundaries. Today's film adventure took me back to my other hometown: Monterey! There at the Osio Theater (home of fine indie, foregin, and documentary films) in downtown Monterey, they were showing the horror/comedy film TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL. So ladies and gentlemen, prepare to start laughing your asses off!

US Theatrical Movie Poster (2010)

Two hillbilly buddies named Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are off to fix up Tucker's new vacation home as well as go fishin' and beer drinkin'. However, along the way, they meet up a bunch of preppy, college kids who mistake them for backwoods, redneck, inbred, hillbillies who want to kill them all. As a result of this misunderstanding, our good 'ol boys' vacation goes from hilariously bad to outrageously worse, in a comical way.

This was such a funny movie! Both Labine and Tudyk are hysterical and portray their country bumpkin characters perfectly, with touches of believability, naivety, and humor. Also Dale's love interest Allison (Katrina Bowden) is fun, spunky, and very, very sexy. But what would our hero be without a nemesis. Dale must save his love from the evil, preppy, and slightly deranged college student Chad (Jesse Moss) who thinks he's saving Allison from the evil hillbillies.

Writer/director Eli Craig, along with screenwriter Morgan Jurgenson, are geniuses. They took the conventions and cliches of your typical backwoods hillbilly horror (ie THE HILLS HAVE EYES, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and WRONG TURN), a spun in it in a complete 180 degrees and told the film from the hillbillies perspective, and taking it into the comedy genre, all the while providing all the gore, blood, and half naked girls that's required. By switching the protagonist and antagonist roles, Craig and Jurgenson added a new dimension to the film. Of course, Moss played Chad so evil and demented that I was so blown away by his performance.

The film was supposed to take place in the woods of the country, the film was actually shot in Canada. Also having a great cinematographer named David Geddes was also a major factor. The Canadian forest never looked so tranquil and breathtaking.  The film toured the festival circuit and received unanimous acclaim.  The film was distributed by Maple Pictures and it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2010. It finally found an American distributor, Magnet Releasing, to release the film to theaters earlier this year.

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL is the best horror/comedy film since 2004's SHAUN OF THE DEAD. The film has such much heart in it that you can't help but to take it all in. So go out and see this film, so when it comes out on DVD, you can brag to your friends that you saw the film first in the theater.

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL is currently playing in limited release in theaters nationwide, including at the Osio Theater in Monterey. To view showtimes, visit their website at http://osiocinemas.com. To view the film's website for future screenings, visit www.magnetreleasing.com/tuckeranddalevsevil

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the show!