I had been hearing about Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010) for over a year when it finally hit Netflix in late 2011. I was deeply entrenched in the horror genre then— scouring the various horror related websites daily for any and all recommendations on what to watch.
It was always a painful wait for movies playing the festival circuit. I would read about films like Trick ‘r Treat (2007) or Behind the Mask: the Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) and then have to wait months or even years before finally seeing them emerge onto disc. And out of all of them, there was none I was more excited to check out than Tucker and Dale.
The mix of horror and comedy that the film seemed to employ was intoxicating to me: a perfect blend of the ludicrous conceits of horror and the language of coincidence and misunderstanding often utilized by comedy. And if Evil Dead II (1987) had taught me that the horrific could be as silly as it was disturbing, then Tucker and Dale vs. Evil would be a lesson in making the hilarious darkly macabre.
Of course, the film delivered that and much more. It’s comedic brilliance relies on a change in perspective, flipping the dynamic between the average teenage victims of a slasher film and the atypical backwoods murderers. The movie takes a more modern approach to the storytelling, placing character at the forefront and providing the “scary hillbillies” with personalities that belong more in a romantic comedy than a vicious slasher flick.
Conversely, the characterizations of the teenagers are made stringier and less sympathetic, focusing on their carnal, animalistic natures juxtaposed against the good-willed attitude of their chosen antagonists. The self-referential nature of how the film explores the dichotomy which grows between the two entities, as well as what happens when such characters cross faction boundaries, is as grotesque as it is hilarious. In that way, the humor and the horror transcends the narrative and becomes about something much bigger: the genre as a whole and the way its audience engages with it.
Still, the film’s simplicity is its strong suit. A base miscalculation. An obliviousness to others’ perception. The backbone of comedy and horror alike.
Situational humor, horror or the combination of the two requires all involved in the filmmaking process to be firing on all cylinders. No other scene better represents that collision of misconception and shock than the teenagers’ barrage on Tucker and Dale at the wood chipper.
Hilarious, absurd and preposterously grotesque, the scene expertly combines the innocence of comedic misconception with the violent ferocity of horror. The actors provide note-perfect timing and the visuals track the events across both groups’ perspectives, alternating genre awareness depending on who’s onscreen moment to moment.
Eli Craig and Morgan Jurgenson’s screenplay reads in a similar fashion, juggling the comedy and the horror in a straight forward manner that betrays neither genre, creating the perfect backbone for the sequence and film as a whole. The words on the page not only allow for an open interpretation cinematically, but for actors Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk to embrace their characters and make the sort of broad, creative choices that led to one of the funniest, most memorable scenes in the history of horror and comedy alike.
THE SCENE
The band of college kids sneak through the bushes and spy Allison digging. Assuming that Dale is forcing her to dig her own grave, they mount an attack. Todd charges Dale with a spear he’s fastened. Dale doesn’t notice, distracted by Allison’s other friends. Allison pushes Dale out of the way and he stumbles, swinging his shovel and knocking them both into the trench. Todd falls in too, impaling himself on his own spear. Dale screams as Todd’s body sinks onto him. Meanwhile, Mike charges Tucker with a pocket knife. Tucker can’t hear him over the noise of the wood chipper. Mike misses and lands headfirst into the wood chipper. Tucker screams, grabbing Mike’s legs, attempting to pull him out as blood and viscera spray all over Tucker. The college kids watch on, assuming that Tucker has just murdered Mike.
THE SCRIPT
THE SCREEN
The scene begins precisely as scripted, with a sweeping camera shot that reveals the intrepid group of college kids as they crawl along the bushes. The screenplay is direct and simple, devoid of any description of the apparent emotion of the occupants on frame, however explicit in how those characters are interpreting their surroundings.
For example, in the film, the group appears weathered and terrified. There’s a permeating sense of desperation as they emerge from the trees. While not mentioned at all in the script, the words do describe Allison from the group’s point of view:
She looks like his prisoner forced into manual labor.
This is depicted visually by way of a POV shot (normally reserved for the antagonist in a movie like this) as Todd’s dialogue is read offscreen: That sick fuck. He’s making her dig her own grave!
This is a common theme in the script and comedy in general, allowing the actors to bring their emotion and reactions with them in the moment. Applying out of context meaning to the actions of others creates a rift in the logic of both sets of characters’ judgement, something only the viewer can perceive. In the right context, this could either be hilarious or terrifying… or a combination of both.
The shot holds on a medium of the group of college kids as they formulate their plan. The screenplay describes their weapons and even suggests a hapless sensibility to the group with lines like: Mike struggles to open the blade on a small Swiss Army knife. Damn those things! The film presents the characters more plainly, actually allowing them to feel as if they’re in real danger. Without the remainder of the film, one might actually see this sequence as being pulled straight from the sort of horror films its sending up.
Still, the moment ends with an unscripted line as the one boy who was not assigned a task stays behind and says, “I’m gonna just chill right here.” The levity is more understated, rather than flamboyant, which makes the larger, more brutal set pieces feel more visceral and uproarious.
Todd SCREAMS like a suicide bomber as he runs at them.
In a long shot that the film continues to cut back to as Todd gets closer and closer, the boy runs at top speed toward Dale. His scream is a war cry, the call of someone who believes the actions he takes next will mean life or death for his friends. That is to say, he’s playing it straight.
The screenplay proceeds quickly with very little action description. The film adds in shots of the teenagers sneaking around and positioning themselves, pumping themselves up for the inevitable deeds they will have to perform. There’s a seriousness present here, a heightened intensity. In this way, when Todd finally does charge at Dale, brandishing his spear, the huge, clueless grin on Dale’s jovial face is all the more effective and ridiculous.
The film intercuts between the same long shot of Todd running with the spear and Dale’s full grin as he says, “Oh, good, your friends are here.” He waves, distracted by two of the other girls sneaking by. Allison spies Todd running full speed toward Dale in a cut from a slightly different angle and shoves Dale out of the way. Turning, Dale hits her with the shovel and they both fall into the hole they had been digging, exactly as scripted with the exception of the shovel being the cause of Allison’s unconsciousness as opposed to a rock. Active versus passive situational humor admittedly seems like a better choice for a sequence such as this.
The events which follow play out in a series of quick, match action shots which makes it feel fluid and immediate, all the while confounding for all involved: not a single person understanding the intentions of the other. These classic elements of comedy storytelling create a gleeful circumstantial disconnect which sets up what feels like should be a wonderfully silly sight gag (i.e. something along the lines of a pie to the face) which instead amounts to a boy being impaled on a spear.
As he charges, Todd’s foot catches on a rock. He trips and falls onto his own spear.
In those two lines, there is a great deal of subtext. To simply read them as written, one might envision a serious accident. In the film, when Todd trips, the camera shows the spear landing beside Dale, a near miss that startles him. Then, the shot cuts to Mike hiding behind a tree and holding his knife. He can hear the disgusting squelch as his friend’s torso is impaled on the spear and the boy’s pathetic dying sputters as he slowly succumbs to death. In the script, the words describe this underlined, adding important emphasis:
The sharpened wood is thrust through his body with a sickening sound.
The decision to cut away intensifies the anxiety and resolve of the other kids, reminding the viewer once again that each group exists within an entirely different construct. When we return to Dale in the hole, Todd is on the spear. His body is flat, slipping downward toward Dale at an excruciatingly steady pace. In the words of the screenplay:
His eyes bulge and blood runs from his mouth as he GASPS his dying breath.
In the film, the boy’s demise is more understated in some ways. His face is somewhat shadowed and his eyes are not visible. Instead you can hear him spitting blood and making low, painful noises. He spews heavy, red liquid, which leaks from his open mouth in thick streams. In a standard horror movie, the death would be entrenched in grief and sadness.
Alternatively, the film offers Dale’s high-pitched, screeching:
AAAAHHHH!!!
The ludicrous nature of the scene and the complete flip of Dale’s position, both physically and metaphorically in the narrative, once again serve amusement and the macabre in equal measure. That’s when the script transitions with the words:
AT THE WOODCHIPPER
There is no scene change here, suggesting a continued fluidity to the sequence that is alive onscreen. Wood chips rain down on the wide shot depicted, watching as the other two girls hide in the background. The film once again cuts to Mike, still brandishing his Swiss Army knife and still working himself up, both in courage and intensity. The screenplay merely reads:
Oblivious to what’s happened, Tucker keeps on working.
The film handles this with another killer-style POV shot from Mike’s perspective, looking on as Tucker feeds more logs into the wood chipper. The shot itself creates a menacing connotation, continuing to challenge the perspective of the viewer as well as the characters in the film. Mike grows excited. He puffs out his cheeks and clenches his teeth. In the script:
Mike runs at him, his nerves now turned to pure rage.
Since the film had only just shown its audience a similar situation play out, this time the event is depicted in a single shot. The camera follows a medium-wide of Mike as he runs toward Tucker. From out of the right frame Tucker emerges at the last moment, comically bending over at the precise moment Mike dives. It happens so fast and in such a matter-of-fact way, one feels like they’re watching a silent comedy where two characters just can’t seem to intersect in the way they’re meant to.
Again, the screenplay offers an uncomplicated depiction, underlining the horrifically emphasized moment of impact: Mike stumbles, flying over Tucker’s back face first into the woodchipper.
Mike lands head first in the chipper as Tucker raises himself once more. He turns and finds a pair of quivering legs behind him as his face is splattered with flecks of blood. Again, the film cuts away, something the script suggests as a delayed response a bit later with the heading COLLEGE GIRLS POV, this time showing the two girls standing up behind the raining wood chips. In that context, Tucker’s screams make him appear unhinged rather than appalled.
The screenplay continues:
Mike’s legs twitch involuntarily as his body grinds to pieces. Tucker grabs hold to pull him free, but Mike is ground in deeper.
A series of close and medium shots depict Tucker’s struggle with the body as it is consumed by the woodchipper. Dirty and splattered with blood, his face still scarred with swollen lumps from his encounter with the beehive earlier in the film, Tucker squirms as his body is soaked in the boy’s blood and viscera. The film depicts it head on and ill-fated, but comedically as if it were nothing more than clumsy slapstick.
The script adds an over-the top punchline at the end of the scene, reading:
The girls SCREAM as Tucker yanks even harder on the woodchipper, accidentally turning it toward the bushes. Blood sprays out of it into the woods, splattering Chloe.
The film depicts this, covering the terrified girl in thick, impossibly viscous and goopy blood, but then returns to Tucker for a bit longer as he finally gives up and wipes his eyes clear. Helplessly he stares at the legs in the woodchipper, realizing the reality of his predicament. After a moment, in a high pitched and desperate voice, he blurts out an unscripted:
“Are you okay?”
The perfect punchline, the words summarize what makes the sequence and the film so special: the madcap and frenzied awkwardness that comes from two different parties who neither understand one another or the circumstance they’ve found themselves trapped inside of.
THE BLOODY CONCLUSION
“So the stuntman just ran and jumped into the wood chipper…” director Eli Craig recalled excitedly on the commentary track found on the Tucker and Dale vs. Evil blu-ray disc (Available here), “and then Alan grabbed his legs and the SFX guy just started pumping blood and he didn’t stop! And that was the take!” His tone was incredulous— elated— rooted in an excitement that can only come from being a fan.
When I finally watched Tucker and Dale vs. Evil for the first time I was struck not only by how funny it was, but how smart it was. How its ability to dissect and reconstruct the genre scenarios it was toying with could only come from the minds of those who were immersed in the genre. From people who loved and respected the broader aspects of horror enough to want to turn it on its head and make it into something new.
Eli Craig and Morgan Jurgenson’s script is simple, yet it accomplishes precisely what is required of it. The words establish the pivoting perceptions running concurrent between the reality of the college kids versus that of Tucker and Dale’s. Each group makes conflicting, yet intersecting decisions which allow misunderstandings to evolve into depraved brutality, calculated malice and, of course, eccentric hilarity.
Horror is often constructed of ludicrous conceits that the audience is expected to accept without question. Comedy, on the other hand, asks a similar favor of its audience, often relying on an outlandish shift in perspective as opposed to more frightful or freakish plot points. Coincidence and misunderstanding is the language they share, despite the fork their desired outcomes sometimes take. However, as evidenced by Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, dread and amusement are not all that different from one another, if you really stop and think about it.
“That was one take and I didn’t know it was going to be that much [blood],” Eli Craig continued on the previously mentioned commentary. He was concerned that the exorbitant amount of blood would detract or distract from the desired response of the scene. Then, he took note of the reactions on set from the crew as well as actors Tyler Labine (Dale) and Alan Tudyk (Tucker).
“…We were all laughing our asses off,” he recalled genially, “and so, I thought that was a good sign.”
In the end, I think director Eli Craig is right. If people laugh their asses off during the gruesome woodchipper scene in your movie, then I think you can rest assured that your horror-comedy is working just fine.
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010): Written by Eli Craig & Morgan Jurgenson and Directed by Eli Craig
