Tonight was supposed
to be “The Lost Boys”, which had been streaming on Pluto. Apparently that ended
at the beginning of the month. *sigh* What to do? While poking around for
another movie to watch in its place, “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” popped up in
the feed. This movie had been mentioned to me so many times in the last few
days. On the surface, it is very much not my kind of movie. But we gave it a
shot and I am so glad.
On top of
not really liking tons of blood and gore being tossed about just for the sake
of doing so, especially while trying to pretend to be oh-so-serious, I also don’t
enjoy watching long held stereotypes about groups of people being trotted out
for the sake of a plot line. Ah, but this is where “Tucker and Dale” is so different.
It’s a parody of college-kids-running-around-in-the-woods-being-picked-off movie
tropes. And boy does it turn the genre on its bigoted little head.
The movie is
funny, ridiculous, bloody, and absolutely wonderful. I’m not going to give away
too much, but the basic premise is a group of college kids heading to the
Appalachian hills of West Virginia for a school break. On the way, they stop at
one of the scariest looking gas stations I’ve ever seen – and I live a stone’s
throw from West Virginia – where they encounter a couple of good ol’ buddy hillbillies
– Tucker and Dale. They’re on their way to Tucker’s new vacation home, where
they’re going to have a working weekend fixing the place up.
The vacation
home is a little better than a ramshackle shack, by the way, which only adds to
the humor. A couple of outdoorsy, unmarried, country guys like Tucker and Dale
might well think it’s the best thing ever. But I digress a little. It turns out
that our college kids are camping nearby, possibly on Tucker’s property. The movie
is never entirely clear on that, but it’s not important overall.
One of the
college contingents, who turns out to be a farm girl, gets rescued by the well-meaning
duo after a fall into the pond where her friends are swimming. And it the
action goes quickly to over the top as her friends decide she’s been kidnapped
and are determined to rescue her from the vile, murderous hillbillies. The kids
then proceed to run all over the place during the course of the movie and inevitably
start dying in all kinds of gruesome ways.
It really is
great fun, even with a high body count. There’s a fun little twist at the end,
other than the realization that our hillbillies aren’t quite as dumb as
everyone wants to think they are. That’s apparently early on. They might be a
little clueless to the overall scheme of what’s happening, but they’re also danged
smart in their own way.
HIGH recommended.
This movie is now on my favorites list and will definitely be rewatched over
time. West Virginia is all too often the butt of cultural stereotypes, but not
this time. And it was a delight to watch. I’d be surprised if there weren’t
sociology papers written on this movie. It certainly lends itself to academic
study.
I’m honestly
not sure what the gaming connection here could be. Bloat Games has a string of
Survive This! Settings where it might fit. I feel like the tone is there, but I’m
not familiar with Eric’s games enough to say for sure. (Sorry, Eric. I’ll work
on that!)
If you want
to run a scary, yet humorous Call of Cthulhu game, this might work. I mean, any
desolate woods anywhere would work – the setting of West Virginia only helped with
the hillbilly characters, but if you take the game back in time to the Classic
era of the 1920s, you could work in any isolated country setting even in New
England. Goodness knows Lovecraft wrote that stereotype often enough with stories
set in Massachusetts, Vermont, or Connecticut.
Check out the
rest of my choices in this post. And if you want to make your own list and play
along, you can find Pun’s theme suggestions here in The Halls of Nephilim.
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