Everyone has their staples for Halloween watching, like John Carpenter’s “Halloween” and “Nightmare Before Christmas.” But be forewarned, gentle reader, because your master of Scarimonies (God, I sound like the Crypt Keeper), Dukey Flyswatter, will suggest some gems and themes that may have flown drastically under your radar, like a schizophrenic Vampire Bat. Week five we focus on the fun stuff.
Dale And Tucker vs. Evil (2010)
Director: Eli Craig. Stars: Tyler Labine, Morgan Jergunson, Katrina Bowden.
This Canadian lensed slapstick comedy of errors and terrors pokes fun of the back woods hillbilly horror flicks that started with the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and continued through the 2000’s with films like “Wrong Turn and the remake of The Hills Have Eyes.”
Dale and Tucker are two lifelong mountain men who purchase a fixer-upper cabin in the woods where they can get shitfaced, hunt for squirrels and tell stupid jokes. At heart they are like a couple of overgrown kids or a rustic version of Laurel And Hardy. The screwball antics start when a group of preppy kids camp by the lake to skinnydip and tell tales of an actual bloodbath committed by inbred locals a few years back. Dale and Tucker run into the bunch one by one, but all of their good-heartedness is misinterpreted by the students as horrible threats. In misguided attempts to save their friends (who don’t need saving at all), or to flee for their lives, each of the campers meets a grisly death via misadventure, like stumbling into a wood chipper. Dale and Tucker are horrified and surmise that this is some sort of suicide pact. Their efforts to stop it only make matters worse and escalates the gory gags.
This film sat on the shelf for three years before finally getting a limited release. It’s a shame because almost everyone I’ve shown it to is pleased. The plot, as it is, isn’t much. There are no real surprises about where it’s going; it’s all about visual humor, like guts to hang on the story’s skeleton. If you need a good laugh to balance the screams, “Dale And Tucker Vs. Evil does the trick.”
