Image via Complex Original
If you're seeking proof that the "crazy hillbilly" genre can never be inundated, look no further than first-time director Eli Craig's new horror-comedy Tucker & Dale Vs Evil. Craig's film, which he also co-wrote, systematically overturns the classic horror cliché of a chainsaw-weilding hick through two unlikely redneck heroes, Tucker and Dale (played by Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine, respectively). Though the backwoods friends are assumed by a bunch of frat kids to be bloodthirsty psychopaths, Tucker and Dale actually turn out to be a surprisingly unique concept: hillbillies with heart.
Amidst cleverly staged accidental deaths (which are the source of the film's best laughs) and comically-infused misperceptions, Tucker & Dale's ignorant sincerity is not only a freshly conceived inversion of the genre—it's a new genre entirely, one Craig calls "bromantic-horror-comedy."
"[Tucker & Dale] is a mash-up of a lot of genres," says Craig. "It has a lot of these different elements to it that horror and horror comedies don't usually have. Usually within even a horror comedy you don't care as much about the lead characters as you do in this. Part of the tension in this film comes from the feeling of the audience, like, 'Don't you dare hurt these guys.' You don't want to see them get killed or hurt. There are a lot of really ludicrous things, within the implausible, maybe even farcical plot…[but] Tucker and Dale are always reacting in a way that seems honest, according to their character."
Being the son of actress Sally Field and admittedly "a little bit squeamish" when it comes to gore, Craig is a bundle of contradictions, much like the film he's conceived, which is exactly why Complex decided to probe this filmmaker's mousetrap mind. So before you catch Tucker & Dale vs. Evil in theaters this Friday (or on VOD right now), check out Eli Craig's 10 Favorite Horror-Comedies.
10. Dead Snow (2009)
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Eli Craig says: I'm going to throw this one out there because it's one that maybe a lot of people haven't seen. It's kind of gross. It's a ski vacation gone wrong, and a group of college kids get attacked by a bunch of Nazi zombies. And then they have to defend themselves against the raving, mad zombies. It had a fun, fast-paced tempo and lack of care at all about what's morally correct.
9. Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes! (1978)
Director: John De Bello
Eli Craig says: I have to throw in Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, mainly for it's title. And for the fact that I was literally terrified of killer tomatoes when I was a kid. I was terrified that tomatoes were going to grow out of control! It was a really frightening film when I was six. I think we need more really ridiculous B-movies like that.
8. Hatchet (2006)
Director: Adam Green
Eli Craig says: Hatchet is just a romp in the backwoods. I like Joel David Moore, basically. I think he's really funny. He plays the lead in this. And they go out into the Louisiana bayou and they get attacked by this giant freak. He's basically a hillbilly freak. In some ways, Tucker & Dale is like the opposite side of Hatchet, if the hillbilly killing people were more of a beauty and the beast like Tucker & Dale. But it's just a wild, fun time.
7. Slither (2006)
Director: James Gunn
Eli Craig says: Slither, I have to say, didn't help my case in making the movie because it was wide-released and it didn't really do very well in the box office. So when I was running around trying to get Tucker & Dale made, people were always like, "Yeah, but Slither didn't make money."
But there's a lot of fun in James Gunn's film. It's one of those films that makes you feel like they had a lot of fun making it. This was a movie that dealt with kind of gross aliens and did it in a way that was winking and just not taking themselves too seriously with it.
6. Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon (2006)
Director: Scott Glosserman
Eli Craig says: This is kind of like a documentary of a guy who becomes a mass serial killer. This film is by Scott Glosserman, who desperately wanted to steal my script and make Tucker & Dale, by the way.
Basically, the film is about this guy, played by Nathan Besal, and he talks about how tough it is to be a serial killer and all the media attention given to him. Being a mass-psycho-horror-slasher takes a lot of work! You gotta be on an aerobics plan, you have to be able to outrun people without making it looking like you're running. When you're running like crazy, running like mad, you have to make it look like you're walking! You know how tiring that is? There's a lot of funny stuff about what it takes to be a psycho slasher, and it's all documentary style.
5. Zombieland (2009)
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Eli Craig Says: Zombieland was just one of these fun rides. The first 30 minutes were probably some of the most exciting and humorous action-comedy-horror filmaking I've ever seen.
In horror comedies, and in most horror films in general, you see the whole incident kind of play out slow, but they started it right in the middle of the action and they did it in a very convention-breaking way. Most screenwriters and film schools would say, "Don't have a lot of voiceovers because it takes you out of the story." But in this case, the first 15 minutes of the film were all voiceover, and you see Jesse Eisenburg running around and just blowing up stuff and shooting at it, and really setting the tempo of the film so, so high.
I think Zombieland brings the sensibility of Cloverfield into the action, and it brings an intensity to it. Ultimately I felt like the film, because it began so high, couldn't live up to the first 30 minutes. But I think by and large they did a great job with it.
4. Young Frankenstein (1974)
Director: Mel Brooks
Eli Craig says: Gene Wilder can be so big and fun and somehow his comedies can be so over the top and so sort of broad, and yet he plays it out in this believable way. It's a very unbelievable feat in acting when you can play a huge, broad character in an honest way. And Young Frankenstein is that kind of movie, and it's an all-time classic.
3. Evil Dead II (1987)
Director: Sam Raimi
Eli Craig says: Evil Dead II is so creative and different. It felt like when they were telling the story it was no-holds-barred. Bruce Campbell gets to put a chainsaw onto his wrist! Everything feels so free; it feels like anything could possibly happen.
Some of the miniatures they have, where there's like claymation or something— there's just a lot really fun, creative, B-movie filmmaking there. It's just gleeful. That's a really fun film to watch. You feel the joy that the filmmakers are having in telling the story.
2. Ghostbusters (1984)
Director: Ivan Reitman
Eli Craig says: I saw Ghostbusters when I was a kid, and I think, to some degree, there was a part of that which came out in Tucker & Dale as well.
It was another loser-hero story, and it's so big and over the top. I love Bill Murray's nonchalant wit so much, plus that line "He slimed me!" When he gets slimed, there's this nonchalance to the danger. It's like there's this imminent danger of this apocalypse happening and these guys are the biggest screw-ups in the world taking on and defeating this apocalypse. I don't know. There's something that will always resonate with me about screw-ups winning a war against evil.
1. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
Director: Edgar Wright
Eli Craig says: Shaun Of The Dead has got to be number one. It was groundbreaking at the time, and it was something I looked at as far as a buddy comedy and a romantic comedy taking place within the concept of a horror film.
I also think that there's a real drive to the storyline and the plot devices. A lot of times, horror-comedies lose their footing a little bit and get lost, [but in Shaun of the Dead] you move in a way that keeps people entertained and develops that plot. And it wasn't just campy gore. When there was gory stuff, it was kind of real gore… and there was a hero! I love movies that are loser-to-hero movies! It came down to the tag line, "A hero will rise from the sofa"…to beat back zombies [Laughs.]
I personally follow characters, and Nick Frost and Simon Pegg have a comedic timing together that just works—really two great, likable leads. I don't want to say Tucker & Dale is a tribute to Shaun of the Dead, at all; I really want it to be its own zone. But I respect and admire what Edgar Wright did with Shaun of the Dead. I used it as a bit of a template for Tucker & Dale.
