Tucker & Dale vs Evil is directed by Eli Craig who also co-writes the screenplay with Morgan Jurgenson. It stars Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine, Katrina Bowden and Jesse Moss. Music is by Michael Shields and Andrew Kaiser and cinematography by David Geddes. Plot has Tudyk and Labine as two harmless mountain/country men who head to their newly acquired vacation home in the woods to fix it up and get some R & R. But after a misunderstanding at a roadside store with some college kids, who think Tucker & Dale are hillbilly psychopaths, the wheels are set in motion for a bloody battle for survival, but who for?!

In 1996 Scream came slashing forward to inject witty life into a fading horror genre, with freshness and inventive splinters from the slasher formula, Wes Craven's movie rocked the horror faithful's world. Tucker & Dale vs Evil will not have the same impact, its limited release and low budget worth ensured it never had a chance of being a big thing, but still it's the freshest horror/comedy to have come out since Scream made its bloody bow at the box office.

It's such a simple idea at the core, you have to wonder why it wasn't thought of before? Craig and Jurgenson have flipped the age old Hillbilly Killers vs Preppy College Kids idea on its head, and in the process smothered it gleefully with dark humour, laugh out loud moments and inventive deaths. There's also some social comedy nestled nicely in the narrative, big points about first impressions and ideas of stereotypes, and hell yes! There's even an opposites attract arc - though that admittedly helps to bog the picture down as the central joke premise runs out of steam towards the end. In fact were it not for a relatively sloppy finale, this would surely be falling into sub-genre classic status. Thankfully all that comes before it is so full of vim and vigour, blood and bluff and fun and frolics, it's not hard to forgive the debut director his one misstep.

The neat trick is having the film unfold from the Hillbillies viewpoint, where the carnage that unspools gets increasingly difficult for them to explain, this in spite of their innocence. Each death is logical to the college kids who go on the attack when one of their number, they think, is kidnapped. And it's logical to us the audience as well, were it not for us being privy to these wonderfully funny sequence of events, we too would have them hung, drawn and quartered after a guilty verdict was reached in 10 seconds. This is the ultimate horror/comedy flip-flop movie. So many funny sequences light up the picture, with a chainsaw scene one of the finest moments to have ever graced a horror comedy movie, but the dialogue, too, is not found wanting in the fun and charming department. Cast are on top form, with Tudyk & Labine a most agreeable double act, where their comedy timing is impeccable, and Bowden & Moss are more than just pretty faces.

Craig (Sally Field's son) has started with a bang, if he can top this then he is a name to really get excited about. If he can't top it? Well he will at least always have one of the best horror comedy movies on his CV. Yes it's that good, fans of Scream, Severance, Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland should seek it out post haste. 8.5/10

Eli Craig did a masterful job in presenting the best horror comedy since "Suck."

Playing on the tried and true "Flinstones Plot" of miscommunication that may drive some viewers crazy, Craig brings the gore and the humor with great special effects and wonderful acting. Best of all, of course, the story is solid with an interesting and poignant antagonist development that is extremely impressive.

Better still, the laughs aren't cheap and silly.

And if you live in the southern United States and hate how "southern folk", "backwoods families" and "hillbillies" are exploited for horror purposes, you'll love this tremendous twist on such a overused and ill-conceived cliché.

This is one of the greatest horror comedies ever presented on film.

TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL is a comic horror film with a twist: the villains are actually the good guys, and vice versa. What starts out as a standard 'hillbilly' horror flick, in which a bunch of vacationing teenagers find themselves at the mercy of a couple of murderous rednecks out in the backwoods, soon turns into a broad spoof of the horror genre as a whole.

The twist is that the rednecks are the good guys and the inevitably gory slayings that occur are a result of accidents and plain bad luck. This premise gives the film some novelty value, but unfortunately it aims at the lowest common denominator for the most part and the humour is obvious and predictable.

It's fair to say that the writing is better than the direction here, because there are some subtle character bits written in amid all the mayhem and destruction. The performances of Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk are both decent, as the guys form a good double act which carries them through the rest of the movie. The deaths are very cheesy and the low budget is always more than apparent, but if you're looking for something different then you might just enjoy this.