Video editor Dave Gostisha and movies editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper love movie trailers. Each Thursday, they'll highlight one for an upcoming film.
Gael says: Horror and comedy don't always work together, but when they do, the results can be hilarious. (See "Return of the Living Dead," "Shaun of the Dead.") The trailer for "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil," which opens in limited release Sept. 30, starts out like a million other horror movies. Hillbillies! Creepy woods! Nubile college girls! But turns out Tucker and Dale are just gentle giants who are completely misunderstood by the nervous college kids. When a sexy blonde offers to help dig a latrine (a "crapper hole" in Tucker/Dale terms), her friends freak out: "He's making her dig her own grave!"
Sometimes a movie wastes all its best scenes in the trailer, but I don't think this is the case here. Rotten Tomatoes features nearly two dozen reviews of the film and they're overwhelmingly positive. Plus I love the casting — Tucker is played by Alan Tudyk (Wash from "Firefly") and Dale by Tyler Labine (Sock from "Reaper"). The boys have that endearing McKenzie Brothers-style of cheerful ignorance. Also, has it really taken this long for a woodchipper to get another starring role in a movie? "Fargo" was 15 years ago, people.
Dave says: This just might be the feel-good trailer of the year, really. Why? As in any good slasher film, college kids meet their maker, but this time it’s not at the hands of a masked psychopathic killer, but in a series of wild misadventures, where they inadvertently cause their own demise, over, and over and over, even as their dwindling group of friends watches on.
Poor Tucker and Dale can do little more than watch as another kid bites the dust in a horrifically amusing way. The premise is ripe for satire, and it looks like the moviemakers had a great eye for details which horror fans will appreciate.