"TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL" — ★1/2 — Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine, Katrina Bowden; R (bloody horror violence, language and brief nudity); Tower
In this month's horror flop "Creature" and scores of cut-rate horror pictures before it, a cadre of coeds head off into the woods for who knows what and face a ghost/gator/3-D sharks/or serial killing inbred redneck rubes.
And the gag is to see how creative the makeup and effects team are at killing off those coeds. And their ineffectual boyfriends.
So as one-joke horror comedies go, "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" is built around a winner. That one joke is this — suppose the inbred redneck rubes, with their penchant for chewin' tobacco, bad dentistry, worse grammar and chainsaws, were merely innocent bystanders. Misunderstood. Victims.
Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine are the two bubbas who run afoul of an SUV packed with jump-to-wrong-conclusion coeds. Tucker and Dale inspire fear and contempt from the college kids. And as the kids start meeting with this accidental impaling or that accidental shooting/immolation or what have you, the terror among the survivors grows. And it's all just one big misunderstanding.
Sadly, not much funny is done with this set-up. The yokels, who are fixing up a decrepit "lake house" weekend getaway near where the kids camp, aren't menacing and the actors playing them don't even dive into whatever Ozarks/Bayou/Appalachian accent that such characters usually sport. That's a letdown, because Tudyk (the original "Death at a Funeral," "3:10 to Yuma") is normally hilarious without trying too hard. Here, little or no effort shows, aside from the teeth-yellowing.
And actor-turned-director Eli Craig is more fascinated with the next effect — swarms of stinging bees, impaling by nails — to fret much over character or comic timing or funny lines. Jokes don't land, or they land flat-footed. The obvious gags are too obvious and the script never comes close to the level of farce.
Katrina Bowden plays the one accident-prone "victim" who may know the truth about our hapless heroes. And she never can quite get across, "Hey, they didn't do anything."
But "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" still has the makings of a classic midnight movie — audience participation, horror fans howling at every creative killing and every masterpiece of makeup art. But stripped of the audience's help, "Evil" fails to triumph. Utterly.
"TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL" is rated R for bloody horror violence, language and brief nudity; running time: 89 minutes.