I’m at a stage where horror-comedy, or comedy-horror is becoming appealing. This sub-genre is really perfect for those horror fans who like to laugh and still get something of substance. Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil is a great example of the dangers of stereotyping. Like Scream, it is very aware of horror tropes, but it makes fun of them in creative ways. At points it’s laugh-out-loud funny, but it is pretty gory. It begins with the usual folk gothic scenario of a group of college kids going camping deep in rustic country. At the last gas station, they encounter Tucker and Dale, whom we’ve been primed to think of as potentially murderous hicks. In reality, they’re a couple of hapless but nice guys on their way to fix up a cabin they bought as a vacation house.
The college kids end up camping nearby and interpret everything Tucker and Dale do through the lens of assuming hillbillies are inbred evildoers. It’s kind of a reverse Deliverance. So it sets up a love story between one of the coeds, Alison, and Dale, who rescues her from drowning. Meanwhile Alison’s friends assume Tucker and Dale have kidnapped Alison and plan to attack to set her free. Of course, mayhem ensues. Dale, who is big and shy, and who suffers from an inferiority complex, keeps on making missteps in trying to convince the other kids that his intensions are good. That’s the most brilliant part of the movie—it cautions against reading people in the light of our biases. Often when I find myself in areas where we see lots of Trump signs, the locals, in non-political contexts, are very nice. I feel sad that one man has decided hatred is the only way to power. Making people distrust and hate each other so that he can win.
People, overall, are pretty descent. There are some bad ones out there, for sure, but the number of times I’ve encountered helpful strangers—in both rural and urban settings—reinforces my underlying belief that if we don’t try to set people against one another their natural goodness will come through. It’s hard to do when all the campaigning, and even the rhetoric from 2016 to 2020 was of distrust of others and personal superiority. The real hero of Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil is Dale, the one with an inferiority complex. Those who humbly assume that others are better than they are seldom try to hurt other people. And yet, those who don’t know “salt of the earth” types, who may live in less-than-ideal circumstances, frequently approach them with fear. It’s a horror-comedy in the making.
