On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL (Magnet Releasing)

Click Here For On Demand Weekly's Exclusive Interview With Director Eli Craig

TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL On Demand
By Chris Claro

Rare is the truly original idea. With virtually every movie pitched as a mashup of two (or more) established properties – “It’s AMERICAN BEAUTY meets THE BOURNE IDENTITY” – it isn’t often that a film shows a glimmer of originality.

Paradoxically, TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL,

a film that takes on the tropes of hillbilly slasher films

and turns them on their bloody ear,

is one of the freshest and funniest films to come along in a while.

Full of all the expected chainsaws, wood chippers, and obnoxious college students, the film mixes gore and comedy to tell a story about how appearances can deceive. Seemingly stereotypical hillbillies Dale (Tyler Labine, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES) and Tucker (Alan Tudyk, FIREFLY) want nothing more than to fix up Tucker’s cabin in peace and quiet. But a series of misunderstandings and overreactions sets off a chain of bloody slayings that upend expectations and turn the victims into their own worst enemies.

Throughout, director Eli Craig – son of Sally Field – makes the most of what was clearly a shoestring budget to twist the clichés of the form in much the same way that John Landis did thirty years ago with AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. By casting a knowing eye toward the hoary devices of the rural horror flick – nubile skinny-dippers, campfire ghost stories, graphic deaths – Craig, as Landis had before him, tweaks the genre while maintaining its traditions.

The screenplay, by Craig and Morgan Jurgenson, is predicated on the idea that people – and movies, for that matter – shouldn’t be judged solely on their looks. In subverting the expectations of the audience by inverting the conventions of the film, Craig and Jurgenson offer a kind of meta commentary on thirty years’ worth of slasher flicks.

So many movies and so many movie lists of 2011. How could you watch or read them all and yet so many are so similar. Do you need affirmation of the films you may have seen in the theaters already? How about learning about the best films of 2011 you may have missed?

On Demand Weekly's Cynthia Kane and Chris Claro offer their Top 10 Movies On Demand of 2011. Tell us what you think of the their lists or what your #1 movie of 2010 is HERE.

Part I - Cynthia's is HERE.
Part II - Chris's is below.

10. SHUT UP, LITTLE MAN! AN AUDIO ADVENTURE
Matthew Bate’s hilarious and poignant film about unwanted fame and the subculture of pre-Internet tape trading was an entertaining and effective documentary.

9. THE MAN FROM NOWHERE
The violent and kinetic thrill ride from Korean director Jeong –beom Lee was stuffed with dynamic action set-pieces and an amazing performance from child actor Sae-ron Kim

8. BLACKTHORN
The last real man, Sam Shepard, took on the legend of the last real outlaw, Butch Cassidy, in an elegiac film about the final days of cowboys and Indians.

7. THE BIG UNEASY
Humorist Harry Shearer’s fascinating and heartbreaking document of the post-Katrina cover-up by the Army Corps of Engineers. Thoroughly sourced, sincerely conveyed, and absolutely fascinating.

6. BRIGHTON ROCK
Helen Mirren and John Hurt classed up this retelling of Graham Greene’s novel about a killer and the girl he entrances. Set against the birth of the mods/rockers conflict, Rowan Joffe’s film also boasted an intense performance by Sam Riley.

5. CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP
Behind the scenes with the talk show host on his post-Tonight concert tour, director Rodman Flender’s film was painful, funny, and painfully funny.

4. TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL
Horror clichés were turned on their ear in Eli Craig’s debut film. Stars Taylor Labine and Alan Tudyk were a joy as the harmless hillbillies mistaken for psychos.

Chris's Top 3 of 2011...