A Slasher Movie That Upends Cliches

'Tis the Halloween season, I suppose, judging from all the candy and pumpkins for sale at our grocery store. The weather would never let you know otherwise.

I'm here to say a few things about a slasher movie that Corrie and I just watched on Netflix. Slasher movies were never really my cup of cinema tea. I didn't grow up renting all the horror or blood&gore movies from the rental place, but only because...well, I don't know. They weren't frightening, maybe just uninteresting to me at the time. I don't even know what I would've rented before I started renting classics during high school.

In any case, slasher movies and horror movies are definitely not Corrie's type of movie, and nowadays it takes some coaxing to convince her to watch one with me.

I believe this post is most likely for Lupita.

So, the other day we turned off the lights and enjoyed the comedy slasher stylings of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. If you like this type of movie, you definitely should see this. It happily turns the normal tropes and cliches from slasher movies on their head.

There are two groups of folks; one is a young, wealthy, and beautiful group of college coeds going camping for a weekend; and the other group is a pair, two pals who would normally be considered hillbillies, who are two normal woodsy guys out to fix up a lakefront house they just bought.

Through jumping to conclusions and a misunderstood rescue, the college kids think the hillbillies are out to kidnap and kill a young lady who's from their group. She learns they're fine guys, and begins to help with some of the chores while they wait for her friends. Her fiends are spying on their place, and misinterpret her helping dig an outhouse as her being forced to dig her own grave.

Another scene that cracked me up was a little earlier in the movie when Tucker is out back with a chainsaw, ready to take care of some logs. He starts to cut into one, and hits an unseen beehive. Meanwhile the college kids are closing in on the house when they hear a chainsaw coming from out back. They start to get spooked, when all of a sudden Tucker, being swarmed by bees, comes running frantically from behind the house screaming and brandishing his chainsaw. Of course the college kids scramble, and one accidently impales himself on a felled tree.

This movie is fun and funny, and doesn't skimp of the brutal deaths, even if they mostly tend to be accidents and mishaps. I would fully recommend it for fans of the genre.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Yay.