Sundance 2010: ‘Tucker & Dale’ light up midnight
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
In a raucous midnight screening – is there any other kind at Sundance anymore? – “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” debuted to some of the bigger belly laughs of the festival thus far. The electric vibe at the packed Library Theater on Friday night seemed to cement the reputation that the after-hours time slot is no longer the fest’s second-class category (as Times writers Steven Zeitchik and John Horn ably point out in this article) but an increasingly high-profile showcase for odd-ball genre movies with potential mass appeal.
The hillbilly horror-comedy follows West Virginia natives Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) – two coverall and un-ironic-trucker-hat-wearing Appalachian guys with questionable dental hygiene and hearts of gold – as they set off to spruce up Tucker’s newly acquired vacation home lbeside a lake, deep in a forest. A passel of college kids (who have apparently seen and taken to heart every teen slasher movie set in a similarly remote locale) arrive and set up camp nearby. A communication failure of monumental proportions ensues.
Through a series of cultural misunderstandings, the feckless Abercrombie & Fitch-clad youths become convinced that Dale and Tucker are the kind of scythe-wielding backwoods hicks that haunt this nation’s collective psyche. And in a piquant inversion of the kind of thing you’d see in just about any film in the “Friday the 13th” franchise, the college kids come after the flummoxed hillbillies with guns, pick-axes and pointed sticks drawn, forcing the factions into a hilarious – if extremely bloody and meta-narrative lampooning – confrontation.
-- Chris Lee
RELATED:
Sundance 2010: The bait and switch of ‘Catfish’
