HOLLYWOOD—On Friday night, you have an opportunity to go out and find a comical horror film that is filled with rednecks, who do not mind playing humor. Tucker and Dale are two guys on vacation at their dilapidated mounting cabin when they are attacked by a group of preppy college kids. Those kids end up finding out that they have possibly bitten off more than they can chew, and it’ll leave the audience in laughter and hysterics.

Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine

Director Eli Craig also was a writer in the film, so perhaps that’s why he chose humor rather than intense drama. Eli Craig’s “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” is not a film that will have widespread appeal, but for young people who love the non-urban horror such as films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and the “Friday the 13^th” films, the targeted audience will love the humor along with the gore.

The film centers on two rednecks named Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) who buy a very run down cabin that they intend to use as their getaway home. Meanwhile, in the same area, a group of college kids, led by a vicious and overly aggressive Chad (Jesse Moss), arrive to do some camping during college spring break. Things start going in the wrong direction after one of the college girls, Allison (Katrina Bowden), nearly drowns during a nighttime swim and is rescued by the two hillbillies. What the pair doesn’t realize is that the college kids are convinced that Tucker and Dale have kidnapped their friend and try almost everything in order to get her back, even at their own peril.

Tucker Dale vs Evil Stars Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine and Katrina Bowden

As the two idiotic, but well-intentioned hillbilly guys, Labine and Tudyk are not just great individually, but they have great chemistry as a team as well. And neither plays a character that will be making any scholastic achievements in their lifetime, Dale is a likeable dummy who you cannot help but love, particularly when he becomes a bundle of nerves around the beautiful Allison.

Tucker on the other hand is more like the straight-man, but also has many opportunities to become very hilarious in the role by the middle part of the picture. From playing around with a chainsaw while being attacked by a swarm of bees to all kinds of events with other characters as well, these two characters remind me of Herman and Grandpa in the 1970s hit TV show “The Munsters.” The duo must be long-lost descendants of the Marx brothers, because they play off each other as well as the original team. Dale and Tucker are Moe and Curly from “The Three Stooges” with newfound missions to accomplish in this hilarious film. Both actors in the film embody a great sense of humor and they achieve the goal of making the viewer laugh very much throughout the movie. By the time the college kids all bite the dust, you are left wondering how two guys could be either so stupid or so lucky?

Director Craig has gone all out to recreate the backwoods atmosphere and environment needed for this film, to bring out humorous experiences that manage to catch the moviegoer by surprise in many instances. Often you think something is going to come across as creepy, but it manages to elicit humor instead. Perhaps that was Craig’s ultimate mission. If so, he did himself just fine.

The only setback for the film is as the storyline progresses each college kid finds him or herself in the same predictable ending as the character before. The death scenes are sometimes done in an ingenious way, but like most horror films of today, the predictability becomes slightly boring. The writers, (Craig) included could have found more original ways to bring mayhem to the film than they did by the movie’s ending. However, the humor makes up for the deficit in originality. This film receives Three and a Half of Five Stars from this reviewer.

“Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” opens on Friday, September 30, in theaters nationwide.