Difficult to believe they were able to pull this kids-in-the-woods being murdered farce off, but the script is tight, the special effects are gruesome and effective, and the three leads are superb. Tudyk and Labine are like a comedy team that has been working together for 20 years. Bowden is perfect in her role without being stupid--again, hard to pull off. Wow! ( )

Content warnings: lots of on-screen gore and deaths, a little bit of off-screen torture, a dog is threatened but neither hurt nor killed, and one character licks another character's face and kisses them without their consent (eww). None of the characters are raped, but one character has rape in their backstory.

Tucker and Dale are two hillbillies on their way to the vacation home Tucker just bought. It's a fixer upper, true, but it's still a dream come true for both of them, and they're looking forward to cleaning the place up and doing some fishing.

A group of college kids is heading out to the same area as Tucker's vacation home, intending to do some camping, tell some scary stories, and drink some beer. Unfortunately, they forgot their beer. While buying some, they spot Tucker and Dale and think the two guys look creepy. Dale, in a failed effort to get to know one of the girls better, ends up scaring the group even more. This escalates when one of the girls, Allison, accidentally slips and falls. Her friends think Tucker and Dale have hurt and kidnapped her with the intention of killing her and then them.

As you can probably tell, this movie with filled with misunderstanding and lots of gory mishaps. The college kids repeatedly mistake Tucker and Dale's words and actions for those of serial killers and, in their panic to escape or fight back, accidentally end up horribly killing themselves.

This was sometimes gorier than I could handle, but still largely fun to watch. The college kids were enormously unlucky, and their instantaneous fear of Tucker and Dale didn't help matters. Chad, meanwhile, escalated things by assuming he was the hero of some sort of slasher story. Chad also assumed that pretty blonde Allison would be as interested in him as he was in her, leading to a couple creepy scenes that established him as the movie's true villain.

While I thought Allison and Dale's interactions were sweet, I disliked the movie's final scene and wish it had been left up to viewers to decide whether Allison reciprocated Dale's feeling or whether they'd just remain friends. I did feel, as I was watching the movie, that if Allison had rejected Dale the way she had rejected Chad, he'd have reacted in a much less scary way than Chad. Chad sucked.

Overall, it was an okay movie despite my dislike of the final scene.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

A couple of guys are mistaken for psychotic, murderous hillbillies.

Amateurish production, but pretty funny.

Concept: B
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: D
Music: C

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 1.8/4 ( )