Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Wouldn’t it have been funny if the Friday the 13th movies were basically a French farce? And if Jason Voorhees wasn't a hell-born killing machine, but just a simpleton who struggled with operating basic hand-tools at night, resulting in the comical death of Crispin Glover? This is (basically) the plot of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Only the nanobots can determine if this film, directed by "Young Hawk" from Space Cowboys, could possibly attain the heights of its forerunner in the French cinema du look movement.

• “Press pass this!” with accompanying middle-finger is the traditional response to an overweight security guy at a concert. It's not so appropriate to direct at your cameraman before wandering into an abandoned crime scene in the middle of the night. = -4pts 
• It’s West Virginia. People die there. = -3pts 
• Scorecard metric: Car full of 6 douchbag white people and 1 black guy means the black character must be in a “butler” situation. = -10pts (This means they were +2 white people for “trendy new network sitcom,” +3 white people for “beginnings of Martin Luther King Jr.’s America,” and -10 white people for “plantation.”) 
• Hats that say “Giv’er.” = +3pts 
• 3-minutes into this movie and we’re just realizing this may be a comedy. = -3pts 
• Wash from Serenity? Yep, this is definitely a comedy. = +4pts 
• Realization that the best comedies surprise as a result of the unintentional. = +2pts 
• Number of surprises in this movie: 0 = -10pts 
• Inescapable sense that the redneck talking about hot college girls and their alien nature probably speaks the same way about Latinos. = -8pts 
• Any movie attempting to subvert the perception of southerners and how they are actually harmless human beings might think about actually creating real human characters. = No points. Just a recommendation. 
• Wash is acting too hard. = +4pts (For trying.) 
• Aren’t rednecks funny?! People think they are always dangerous! Or gay! Oh situational comedy, you cut so deep! = -3pts 
• Apparently Cabin in the Woods is the sequel to Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, because they filmed at the exact same cabin, which must make the Evil Dead remake a pseudo sequel to that sequel/the conclusion to a trilogy since all three movies were filmed at this cabin. = +2pts 
• “If you have a lot of dreams about sucking a dick. But you don’t exactly suck it. Does that mean you are gay?” No, it means you dream about sucking a lot. Which may explain your terrible choice in friends. = -3pts 
• Flashback filmed to Technotronic’s epic dance track, "Pump Up the Jam." = +4pts (Because we’ve finally passed the event horizon of lameness with that song. “Get your booty on the floor now/Make my day. M-m-m-make my day.”) 
• Rednecks drinking PBR in the middle of West Virginia? Hipster filmmaker you have betrayed yourself, sir. = -2pts 
• Filmmakers imply that Dale has a photographic memory. We think he’s just good at trivia. = +2pts 
• Pouring PBR on your face to alleviate the pain of a multitude of bee stings. = +5pts 
• If our first experience in topiary resulted in a face full of bee stings and a college kid impaling himself on a tree branch, we might have left the wood-chipper in the shed. But then again, when you have such a giant banana peel, might as well toss it on the ground and see what happens. = -2pts 
• Wash makes everything better. = +10pts 
• “They cut off his bowling fingers!” = +2pts 
• Finding your best friend’s bloody hat while searching for him and then putting it on. = +2pts (+100pts, had it been underwear.) 
• “Eat shit body perm!” = +8pts (The Scorecard’s official welcome mat slogan.) 
• Pouring PBR on the bloody stumps of your missing bowling fingers. = +2pts 
• Watching a black man burn to death in West Virginia for the purposes of a “good laugh.” = -50pts (Too soon...) 
• One Rami-esque home assembly scene too many. = -3pts 
• How does a psychotic college douchebag who’s probably never taken a class harder than “The Poetry of Edmund Spencer” know how to operate the complicated machinery of a functioning sawmill? Dollars to donuts, this guy couldn’t whittle a wooden knife out of a whittled wooden knife. = -5pts 
• There are a lot of unbelievable things in this movie, but watching this scrawny bro toss around a dude that has at least four inches and 80 pounds on him is pushing the limit. = -5pts 
• Blaring emo rockers Say Anything (?) over the credits completely exposes world view of the filmmaker, who has clearly never been south of Northern Virginia. = -5pt

Total Score = -66pts

Available on: Netflix streaming, Redbox, DVD, Blu-Ray, A Klan Happy Christmas  

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is basically a good joke told by someone who ruins good jokes. We’re all familiar with this person. How they mangle the opening, pick it up a bit towards the middle through sheer determination, right before promptly ruining the punchline. If there’s a good thing to take from all of this, it’s that this particular joke teller will grow into a grizzled Tommy Lee Jones, who, along with his best friend (Clint Eastwood), will find themselves, during their golden years, on the precipice of passion on the final frontier. Cinema du look, indeed.

Score Technician: Sean McConnell