Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010) 2nd Movie Review

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Genre and Context Analysis (2010)

Director: Eli Craig

Genre: Comedy/Horror

Plot: Tucker and Dale are on a vacation at their mountain resort cabin when a group of college kids assume they have kidnapped one of their friends and are attacked.

My two favourite scenes

In the film Tucker and Dale vs. Evil my first favourite is the scene where Allison has awoken from being knocked unconscious and then saved from drowning by Dale and the college kids surround the cabin in an attempt to jump both Tucker and Dale to save Allison. The scene opens with Allison’s point of view as Dale enters the room she’s being looked after in and the parallel music is tense which treats Dale like he’s holding her hostage. Allison shouts and Dale assumes she “doesn’t like pancakes” then the camera focuses on Allison murmuring “pancakes” to her as if that was the big deal. When Dale next enters the room with a different meal the music is parallel showing Allison has understood Dale is trying to help. They then play a board game which Dale knows the majority of answers too despite playing a hillbilly who is expected to be stereotypically be dumb. As Mitchell attempts to go near the cabin, Tucker has chainsawed into a bee’s nest and runs from it while being attacked, the camera focuses from Mitchell and then deep focuses on Tucker after it zooms in when Mitchell runs away also known as a rack focus. The pace in the parallel music and the shots pick up as we enter a chase sequence, where the montage of shots include a lot of fast tracking on both of the characters. Slow motion is also included in this fast paced montage when Tucker runs past Mitchell and we see Mitchell’s face become confused, the tracking continues to focus on Mitchell even as he is stopped and impaled by a branch. The montage then ends on a bee landing on Mitchell’s nose which represents both the fact he’s beginning to understand that the pair are not dangerous and that he’s met his end.

After this scene Dale and Allison work together to build a “Crapper House” outside the cabin. This short sequence shows them getting to know one another. Tucker is throwing wood into the wood chipper and the camera is at a low angle, showing how powerful the machine is. This utilises both collision cutting and using suspense to show it’s leading up to something. As the college kids are watching them, we’re shown a point of view shot from one them and as they do not know the full story and we do (dramatic irony) it seems to them Dale and Tucker are making Allison do their dirty work, and building her own grave.

When the ambush begins one of the college kids runs straight for Dale but as it’s humorous, Dale steps out of the way and the college kid is stabbed with his own weapon in the ready dug grave. Adding to the humour in this scene Tucker also bends down to reach another chunk of wood as a kid goes to jump on him and ends up falling into the wood chipper.

Another point of view shot is shown from the females from the group, watching Tucker holding the feet making it look as if Tucker had pushed him in there. Not once are we shown what’s happening inside the chipper as its restricted narration, although we are shown the body after it’s pulled out and also the body horror of the blood which replaces the wood chippings splattering onto the female.

My second favourite scene is towards the end of the film where Chad and Dale are told to sit down and negotiate by Allison. Foreshadowing is played out when Chad sits against the “pure evil” and says with humour that a specific type of tea messes with his asthma and an ingredient of this is what Dale uses to save Allison later. Also while she’s explaining the story, we’re shown a longshot of the 3 characters at the table, where we can also see both sides holding a weapon ready. Chad explains the story of why he has such a hatred for hillbillies which is also a continuation of the story he begun to tell at the campfire. The story involves a slowly paced sepia montage where he says the group was attacked by hillbillies, brutally murdering everyone for fun and his mother ran for her life, this sequence shows close-ups of each student’s murder and tracking of the phallic weapon used. His father is then locked into an oven and the camera zooms through the flames into the radioactive symbol on the wall of the chamber and the hillbilly is laughing through it. 

The symbol and fire are both graphically matched cutted into the next shot of Chad’s eye, representing the anger inside of him building up and his hatred for the hillbilly “kind”. Another misunderstanding is when two more college kids sneak up on the cabin and look through the window, this is a point of view shot as we see the blurriness of the glass and the window’s frame, they believe for the gang inside to have been trapped and ready themselves to save them. Suddenly the two other college kids from outside burst in creating a collision cut which makes the calm scene build parallel music while short takes of close ups show Chad attacking Dale. Even the sound effects of the weapons and punches are emphasized to show the action and pace of the scene. The low key lighting and chiaroscuro play a huge part in this scene as the cabin catches fire. What overall makes this scene my second favourite is when the cabin blows up as we view it from long shot outside the cabin and Tucker, Dale and Allison all escape the cabin and we assume everyone inside is dead, point of view shots from Tucker watching the entrance to the house as we watch Chad crawl out of the door, shot reverse shots to show the reaction of the characters and then finally the camera zooms into Chad where he is almost presented as a silhouette from the flames. The flames in the background also make Chad stand out as the low key lighting on his face makes the burns on half of his face stand out, representing the half of goodness inside of him and the evil taking over. We finish off with an emphasized roar from Chad representing him as a demon, as “pure evil”.

Characters and Representation

In the film, the character’s representations can be seen in multiple ways as at the beginning we believe them to be the Protagonists and the rednecks in the shop to be the antagonists from the low-key lighting in the shop. But throughout the film, the aim of the college kids is to save Allison from the redneck “antagonists” but with the series of misunderstandings they end up being the death of each other. Overall Dale and Tucker are the protagonists and Chad is the antagonist. The college kids also represent the “vs. Evil” in the film title.

The group of college kids are all victims of each other, and the policeman is a victim to an accident “waiting to happen”. The victims are made up of both male and female victims while Allison is the “final girl” of the group and Dale become the overall male hero. These representations of the characters also provoke the theme of “don’t judge a book by its cover”.

Mise-En-Scene

The cabin which was told to be a holiday resort turned out to represent the creepy location in the film, this cabin also reminds me of the one from The Cabin in the Woods as a group of people end up trapped in a similar cabin. This cabin also includes newspaper clippings from unfortunate events and Taxidermy, overall reflecting the creepy enclosed location. On the side of the wood chipper is a symbol of a circular blade, representing the story told by Chad where the redneck uses it as a weapon. When the cabin is alight, the use of the jars makes the flames grow and also puts the cabin in a more creepy position and when Chad is standing in front of it the use of the lighting creates a Rembrandt effect on his face, indicating the personalities of Chad are mixed.

The use of the farmer tool at the beginning of the film where the college kids leave the shop looks to be a scythe, essentially connoting the grim reaper. When Dale and Chad are fighting with phallic weapons towards the end of the film, Dale is holding the chainsaw, compared to Chad’s rod; this shows that the “dumb” hillbilly has an advantage in the fight due to the more powerful weapon, yet at certain parts the weapons are switched showing who has control of the situation.

Sound

In the film a mix of both parallel and contrapuntal music is used as we’re shown two sides to each type of character. When we’re watching the film at Allison’s view, we begin by hearing music which is tense as she believes Tucker and Dale to be bad guys, but this is eradicated when she thinks Dale was screamed at by her because he cooked her pancakes, she’s then given a meal which is presented with parallel music as she’s understood they’re helping her. The harmonica is used a few times in this film (such as in the scene when Tucker and Dale drive to their cabin) which is an instrument associated with rednecks, this adds to the theme of showing what rednecks/hillbillies are like while also creating both parallel and contrapuntal music in scenes.

Editing

Montages are a huge part of this film, due to the constant ambushes made by the college group. One of my favourite sequences is when the group commits their first ambush and end up killing themselves in both horrific and comedic ways. The editing in this scenes creates suspense and there’s always something going on for each character (Tucker and Dale) keeping the action going.  One strong scene where editing is used is when Chad has Dale’s dog hostage and creates his own nail gun, a short montage of close ups of each object being put together shows it’s being built. After this, we watch each side shoot at each other while wild west theme plays over through parallel music.

Cinematography

Close-ups are used in every sequence to show the misunderstandings, showing the emotions and feelings of each of the characters. One main use of close-ups in this film are at the beginning, when the mix of a handheld and point of view shot of a cameraman captures a reporter being attacked by Chad in the building seen at the end of the film, and when the cameraman is knocked out and we watch as Chad picks the camera up and points it closely to himself. Also another strong use is low angles, always switching between the two types of characters specifically in the saving Allison scene towards the end when both Dale and Chad are fighting with phallic weapons and the cameras angle heavily focuses on each camera when they are in control, representing the power each of them have at the moment. One of my favourite shots in the film is when we’re shown a long shot of the forest and the moonlight is reflecting upon the mysterious pathetic fallacy of the smoke/fog drifting through the woods, and we see a silhouette. We’re only shown one shot in the film where the camera is upside down, and this is a point of view shot from Tucker as he is hung upside down and restricted narration of his fingers being cut off, this shot is also out of focus, representing his consciousness and goes into focus as he wakes up.

Themes

In the film, the only use of sex and the taboo I found was played out through the use of one of the college females skinny-dipping. The strongest theme was loneliness and isolation, this is found in Chad’s life when we realise his father was killed and mother committed to a psychiatric hospital making him left looked after by his grandparents.

Narrative

The film begins with an open ending which was played at the start where Chad turns out to be alive from the scene where his asthma caused him to tumble backwards out of a window and believed dead. The film has also been confirmed for a second movie which in the average horror film will bring back the last film’s antagonist. The ending was supposedly happy as Dale goes bowling and has a relationship with Allison, but this happy ending is depleted after realizing the opening scene of the cameraman and news reporter are both attacked by Chad.

Ideologies

Chad seems to contain some misanthropy towards the redneck/hillbilly “kind” and is misogynistic in that he also blames Allison for his psychopath feeling for being with the redneck through “Stockholm syndrome”. One example in the film of a Cultural Dominant Ideology is how people view Rednecks and Hillbillies as being poor, white, trash. Which in this film the rednecks/hillbillies are represented as dumb, yet caring and heroic, therefore challenging the CDI. Finally Chad is presented as a sadistic character through him being drunk with power with the axe, showing his bloodlust after the final scenes where his face becomes half bloody.

Context

The assumption of the film is how the teenagers judge the “rednecks” on what they look like, which is why hillbillies are always represented as being dumb, poor, white etc. This film shows that how you look doesn't always reflect your personality or how you act. In society today we look upon hillbillies and rednecks to live on farms and country houses, with shot guns and not caring for anyone else but there own “kind” as Chad says.

In my own film trailer, I would like to use and develop around how this film uses amplified sound effects while echoing out background noise.

The best aspect and most enjoyable moment in the film was realizing the intro scene connected to the ending of the film, finding out the “pure evil” antagonist Chad was still alive. I enjoyed this because it presented it’s cliffhanger at the beginning of the film, making the film become more interesting and action packed.

I also loved how in the story Chad begins to tell to the group at the camp, the murderer changes the song the group was listening too, to the song “Meet my Maker” which represents the college students meeting their killer, which plays contrapuntally through the montage of fast paced shots and close ups.

Finally while Dale and Allison are communicating and bonding after she had believed herself to be kidnapped, she talks about her profession she wants and how “the world’s problems are caused by lack of communication”. This line I felt as one of the most important lines throughout the film as it reflects the story of the film, how the hillbillies and college kids had no communication which led to the “problems” of them not understanding the hillbillies were saving Allison. Even as the hillbillies Tucker and Dale were trying to tell the college kids what they were actually doing only half of the sentences are heard making them sound to be attacking the group.

The film Tucker and Dale vs. Evil was given an age 15 rating despite how the film is very body horror orientated, this shows how much the censorship has relaxed since the Hays Code ended in the 1960’s. For example we’re shown the body of the male who jumps into the wood chipper when it’s pulled out, yet when he jumps into the machine we’re not shown the inside as it’s restricted narration. The film relates to other comedy horrors in the way that they are successful sub-genres of horror such as Cabin in the Woods (2011), Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Zombieland (2009) which he directed and shows his auteur style through the use of body horror and phallic weapons such as chainsaws and such.