Tucker & Dale vs. Evil Is Way Darker Than You Think

[00:00:00]Tucker and Dale Versus Evil is a horror comedy from 2010. It kind of flew under most people's radar, but those who have seen it tend to enjoy its slapstick comedy and the way it subverts traditional horror tropes. But I think in the way it does that, it actually connects to something much deeper. It picks up on an ancient idea which has only become more relevant since the film's release. Let's get into it.

[00:00:29]The film depicts the three days of carnage that ensue when hillbilly best buds Tucker and Dale have an unintended confrontation with a group of college kids. It's set in the present day in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia.

[00:00:44]And we learned that 20 years prior this was the site of some brutal murders known as the Memorial Day Massacre.

[00:00:51]Here's Chad to tell the story. how a bunch of college kids just like us, they came out here to have a good time. But little did they know that they weren't the only ones in these here woods and only one person lived to tell this story. The rest of them just disappeared and their bodies are buried beneath us.

[00:01:14]>> We later learned that Chad has a strong personal connection to this tragedy.

[00:01:19]>> You see, my parents, they were attacked by hillbillies just like him. the Memorial Day massacre. My mother ran for her life, but they captured her. My father was helpless and he didn't even know that she was pregnant with me yet. But my mom, she fought back and she escaped. But my father wasn't so lucky. His body was never found. By the time I was born, my mother was already institutionalized. I grew up hearing that story from my grandmother.

[00:01:52]But, and now we're getting into spoilers. It turns out that Chad's father was actually the perpetrator.

[00:01:58]>> Look at the guy in the middle. Single survivor leads police to the Memorial Day killer. She's now undergoing psychiatric evaluation. Think about it.

[00:02:07]He said his mother was captured and his father >> His father's body was never found.

[00:02:11]>> I think we just found him.

[00:02:13]>> The local sheriff was involved in the investigation, so he's also connected to the dark history of the site. Hence why he warns Tucker and Dale as they venture into it for their vacation.

[00:02:24]>> Where are you two headed?

[00:02:26]>> We are headed to our vacation home by Morris Lake. There ain't nothing up there but pain and suffering on a scale you can't even imagine.

[00:02:35]>> I told you boys to stay away from this place, but you just didn't listen, did you?

[00:02:40]>> And that Memorial Day massacre context is crucial. It expresses the status quo.

[00:02:46]what we would expect to see in a horror film of this nature. A group of suburban college kids viciously prayed upon by some hillbilly men. That's the classic horror trope. And it's articulated very well in Carol J. Clover's 1992 book, Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. I don't agree with all her conclusions, but she did give us the term final girl, which has become a staple of horror vocabulary. And I found her chapter on grape revenge movies to be especially helpful. She argues that movies like I Spit on Your Grave play out on a double axis. There's the gender axis of male versus female. In these films, it's often a woman who is prayed upon by men. The story is told from her perspective as she goes on a journey from victim to avenger. So, there's that male versus female conflict, but there's a second conflict, country versus city.

[00:03:39]Here's how Clover describes it. An enormous proportion of horror takes as its starting point the visit or move of suburban people to the country. That situation of course rests squarely on what might be a universal archetype.

[00:03:51]Going from city to country in horror film is in any case very much like going from village to deep dark forest in traditional fairy tales. Consider Little Red Riding Hood who strikes off into the wilderness only to be captured and eaten by a wolf whom she foolishly trusts.

[00:04:08]though she is finally saved by a passing woodsman. The point is that rural Connecticut or wherever, like the deep forests of central Europe, is a place where the rules of civilization do not obtain. People from the city are people like us. People from the country, as I shall hereafter refer to those people horror construs as the threatening rural other, are people not like us. One of the obvious things at stake in the city country split of horror films in short is social class. The confrontation between halves and have nots or even more directly between exploiters and their victims. To be clear, Carol J.

[00:04:47]Clover isn't having a go at actual country people. Rather, she is describing how they are often depicted in horror films. And I think she's right. It taps into a deep mythos. The fear of the stranger, the outsider, the wilderness. So, in a typical horror setup, if a young woman from the city comes into contact with the men of the country, it's a recipe for disaster.

[00:05:09]Throughout horror history, that double clash of gender and class has been leveraged to nauseating effect. And the Memorial Day massacre in Tucker and Dale versus Evil is a textbook example of that. So, the film begins and we're like, okay, we know where this is going.

[00:05:25]The rest of the film is poised to play out in the same devastating way when Chad's friend Allison ends up in the home of Tucker and Dale, a vulnerable city college girl under the care of two country men. But of course, much of the surprise and humor of the film arises from how it subverts these expectations.

[00:05:43]>> Don't don't cry. Please don't go.

[00:05:48]>> It's the pancakes. You hate pancake. I'm I'll go make you something else. I just >> It turns out that Tucker and Dale are actually decent, well-meaning men. They were simply fishing on the lake when the college kids happened to come along for some skinny dipping. Now Tucker wanted to watch them bathe from afar. That peeping tom impulse arose within him. I think we should go check it out. No, no, no, no, Tuck. You know what? My guess will be that they don't really want to see us right now.

[00:06:22]>> Yeah. No, I kind of want to see them.

[00:06:24]>> He's definitely not perfect and neither is Dale. In fact, the philosophy they articulate is pretty vacuous and potentially damaging.

[00:06:32]>> Let me tell you something. Life is short. You got to go after what you want.

[00:06:36]>> Cuz it sure as hell ain't going to just fall right in your lap. Well, >> listen. Let me tell you something, okay?

[00:06:41]Life is short, BJ. You have to go after what you want because it sure as heck fire ain't just going to fall right into your lap.

[00:06:47]>> Don't shut your rack. I know.

[00:06:49]>> I'm going to come talk to her.

[00:06:51]>> Okay. All right. Now, listen to me, though. Don't be nervous and just be yourself. Okay.

[00:06:55]>> Yeah.

[00:06:56]>> You got it. Go, buddy.

[00:06:59]>> You're like, "Oh, I'm not sure if that's quite the way."

[00:07:03]>> BJ.

[00:07:06]>> Oh my god. Should we go help her?

[00:07:08]>> Hell no. The implication is that maybe things will pan out for that man and the woman he he likes in the same way that it eventually does for Dale and Allison.

[00:07:20]The connection across difference that happens in an unexpected way. Still, the idea of pursuing what you want at all costs is pretty selfish and potentially very damaging to you and others. So Tucker and Dale's words when they're trying to articulate their philosophy, I suppose, aren't especially helpful. But their actions in the face of adversity, those proclaim a deeper truth, and we'll get to that. At this stage, we'll just note that whilst Tucker was watching the yous undress. When Allison started to undress, Dale covered his eyes out of respect. TUCKER.

[00:08:00]>> Dale is well-intentioned but clumsy.

[00:08:02]Tucker is the sharper one, but he's rather begrudging for much of the movie.

[00:08:06]And what we will see is that over the course of the film, Tucker and Dale will sharpen one another, and what they become is greater than the sum of their parts. Anyway, Allison is knocked unconscious, and it's Dale who jumps in to save her. She enters the care of Tucker and Dale, but her friends misinterpret the rescue as an abduction.

[00:08:25]And this brewing tension between Tucker and Dale and Allison's friends is ratcheted up through the use of a contrivance, a sequence of terrible accidents which kill the friends off one by one, but miraculously leave Tucker and Dale rather unscathed. Well, Dale is completely unscathed. Tucker goes through a lot more hardship and that's a sign maybe that he's he's being sanctified in a way. He's being transformed through his suffering. He needs to change a bit. But nonetheless, he is preserved from death. I suppose you could argue that there's some kind of invisible force or deity pulling the strings in the background. Its final destinationesque.

[00:09:05]In fact, Palter Gibbs, who has a great channel by the way, you should totally check it out. He did a video in which he argued that this film could be a secret final destination film. Its death traps definitely operate in a similar way to death in Final Destination. I suppose I see the death traps in Tucker and Dale primarily as a contrivance of the story to pit Tucker and Dale against Chad. But maybe they also serve as a kind of judgment. Tucker and Dale mean no harm, so they are preserved from harm. But Chad and his friends, whatever their motives and misunderstandings might be, they escalate the conflict. They choose violence, so it comes for them. Is the mechanism that allows Dale to miraculously cut Allison's ropes by throwing an axe? Is that the same mechanism that's causing the death traps? Maybe. In any case, whatever this invisible power is, it seems to be on the side of Tucker and Dale and Allison.

[00:09:57]But anyway, the unfortunate result of all this is that Tucker and Dale are made to appear as though they are those sadistic country serial killers when in fact they're not.

[00:10:07]>> It doesn't matter what happened. What matters is what looks like what happened. And what looks like what happened is pretty nasty.

[00:10:15]>> So, what have we seen so far? The film subverts the two conflicts of gender and class that you would normally see in such a horror film. And I think the result is a new conflict that taps into something even deeper and older. Nature versus grace.

[00:10:34]Chad represents nature, the way of the flesh, survival of the fittest. And I don't think that's a result of him being a man. I don't think it's a result of his class or family background. You could argue that it's connected to his father being a killer. you know, like father, like son, although he doesn't know that until the end of the film. I think the heart of the problem, as always, is the problem of the heart.

[00:10:58]This is who Chad wants to be. And what's clever about the movie is that although he becomes more maniacal towards the end, you actually see the warning signs right from the start. Here's one of his first lines.

[00:11:09]>> We are in hillbilly country now, boys.

[00:11:14]>> Chad, just cuz you're not in your feet doesn't mean they're freaks. Well, actually it does, Allison. You see, you're either Omega Beta or you're A FREAK.

[00:11:20]>> OMEGA BETA.

[00:11:22]>> OMEGA BETA.

[00:11:23]>> OMEGA. I'm >> in a car full of morons.

[00:11:26]>> He's joking around, but it reveals his tendency to stratify the human race. To Chad, some people are simply more valuable than others. And he's very explicit about that. I don't think it's an accident that his name is Chad. The term Chad became a label for confident, successful, and attractive men in the 2000s, but it was kind of used in a humorous way. It wasn't necessarily a good thing to be called a Chad. More recently, the term has become part of the manosphere and looks maxing conversation. If you're a Chad, or even better, a giga Chad, you are at the top of the pecking order. Ultra masculine, genetically flawless. The film came out in 2010, but it feels weirdly relevant for today. Once the college kids reach the lake, there's an uncomfortable moment between Chad and Allison.

[00:12:13]God, Chad, what the hell are you doing?

[00:12:16]You're such an [ __ ] >> Come on. Come on. That was funny.

[00:12:19]>> No, it wasn't.

[00:12:20]>> You know, you can drop the act now.

[00:12:22]>> What act?

[00:12:23]>> Like, you're better than everyone else.

[00:12:26]>> I don't think >> Yeah, you do. But that's okay, Ally, because I get it. I mean, you are better than everyone else. You and I, Ally, are cut from a dlo cloth. You know what I mean?

[00:12:41]>> I'm not. were cut from a different cloth. Again, he's classifying and categorizing human beings according to the flesh. And he regards himself and Allison to be a perfect couple because they stand out from the crowd. In other words, they're better than everyone else. That's his philosophy. But not Allison's.

[00:13:02]>> Come on, stop.

[00:13:03]>> Why? Why? Why? Stop.

[00:13:07]We're perfect for each other.

[00:13:10]So she rejects his romantic advances and that means on a deeper level she is rejecting his hardcore way of nature.

[00:13:19]You know just pressing into the differences of human beings. No.

[00:13:23]Together with Dale Allison comes to represent in some small way the notion of grace. A love that reaches across differences. A desire to understand. A desire to heal conflicts. And that's a different way of life. goes against the grain of nature and Chad's total embrace of survival of the fittest.

[00:13:42]>> I just think that so many of the major problems and conflicts in the world are caused by a lack of communication, you know.

[00:13:48]>> Yeah.

[00:13:49]>> And I just I just always thought that I'd I'd make a really good therapist.

[00:13:52]>> No, don't don't.

[00:13:54]>> Yeah, my my parents say the same thing.

[00:13:56]I should probably just give >> No, no, no. I think you could do whatever you want. It's just that beam is a little bit rickety. Yeah, you could just push that thing right over.

[00:14:04]Meanwhile, Chad lives out a much darker dream. He pursues an increasingly dark path. Yes, Allison is missing. He has some cause to be alarmed, but part of him is enjoying this already. The hunt, the dynamic of predator and prey, the way of nature. His friends previously laughed along with him, but it's becoming too much.

[00:14:24]>> Don't you get it? This is what it's all about. It's us against them. Survival of the fittest.

[00:14:34]What are you doing, man? That's my whole face.

[00:14:37]>> You have serious issues. You know that.

[00:14:39]>> So, the film pits these two men against each other. Ultimately, it's Chad versus Dale. Nature versus Grace. Both competing for Allison, and Chad looks stronger. At one point, it looks like he's won, but he hasn't won her heart.

[00:14:56]Ultimately, it's the selfsacrificial rescue of Dale that wins. On this channel, I discuss film from a theological perspective because I genuinely believe that the Bible describes reality and helps to unveil layers of meaning in these movies, whether that's intentional on the part of the filmmakers or not. I often get comments saying things like, "I'm not a Christian, but I watch this channel to hear a Christian perspective on film."

[00:15:22]And I'm so grateful for that. If you yourself would like to find out more about this perspective I'm speaking from, I can't think of a better online course than 321. I might be biased because it's presenter Glenn Scriber is a friend of mine, but I genuinely think that in 321 he provides a superb introduction to the person of Jesus. It might just change your life. It certainly changed mine. It assumes no prior knowledge and the eight videoled sessions are based around some beautiful animated stories that really get you thinking. You can check it out right now for free at 321course.com/tt.

[00:16:01]Just enter your email, choose a password, and you're in. There's no spam and no fees. Just visit 321course.com/tt and discover life according to Jesus.

[00:16:12]Back to the video.

[00:16:17]Let's go back to Tucker because he initially resents Dale's desire to rescue Allison. He even references the parable of the good Samaritan and is kind of begrudging about that.

[00:16:26]>> Oh no.

[00:16:26]>> None of this WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF IT WASN'T for you.

[00:16:30]That's right. FOR BEING SUCH A GODDAMN GOOD SAMARITAN. OH MY GOD, SHE'S DROWNING, TUCKER. OH, let's save her.

[00:16:35]Oh, let's save her. Well, hell, is she still alive? Over the past 2,000 years, the teaching of Jesus has had a profound impact on our society and our desire to show compassion across differences, overturning the way of nature. We now have a warped view of compassion, and we frequently fail to live up to the way of compassion. But we we value it. We recognize that it's a beautiful thing.

[00:16:58]It's a glorious thing. Why is that?

[00:17:00]Well, it's important to note that first and foremost, the parable of the good Samaritan isn't about us. And you know, we need to just be more like the good Samaritan. You can get to that. But first and foremost, it's about the compassion of Christ himself towards a fallen, perishing people, us. On the cross, Jesus poured out his life in self-sacrificial love, the greatest act of compassion, inverting the way of nature. Instead of survival of the fittest, it's the sacrifice of the fittest for the weakest, sparking a new movement of compassion destined to spread to the ends of the earth like yeast working through dough. And those of us who have been saved by Jesus, the ultimate good Samaritan, the one who fully lives up to that story. Well, to us, he says, go and do likewise. Go and pass on the compassion that we have received from him and share it with others. That's the Christian life. And the German philosopher nature recognized this. He spoke with bracing clarity on the way of nature. Like Chad, he said, "Pity thwarts the whole law of evolution, which is the law of natural selection." But he also recognized that the compassion of the cross subverted the way of nature. He said, "God on the cross, hitherto, there had never and nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so dreadful, questioning, and questionable as this formula. It promised the transvaluation of all ancient values." Elsewhere, he noted that Christianity has taken the part of all the weak, the low, the botched. It has made an ideal out of antagonism to all the self-preservative instincts of sound life. So the grace of Christ demonstrated on the cross inverted the way of nature, showing us what creation was actually always meant to be and has fallen from. Life poured out for the sake of others. And nature wasn't a fan. He wanted to embrace survival of the fittest. But western culture as a whole continues to celebrate a Christianish view of compassion. And we might have a distorted view of it and we often fail to live up to it as I say. But as Antonio Garcia Martinez says, "The Western mind is like a tuning fork calibrated to one frequency, the Christ story. Hit it with the right Christ figure and it'll just hum deafeningly in resonance." We continue to recognize the beauty and glory in self-sacrifice because our culture has been meditating on the epitome of that for centuries.

[00:19:29]But what's crucial and distinctive about the Jesus story is that it didn't end with him dying for the world. He rose again offering that very resurrection life to all who receive him. I don't know what you make of that, but it's very different. It's not nature. It's grace. It's getting something we don't deserve. It's extraordinary. And I'm not saying that Tucker, Dale, and Allison fully embody the way of Christ, but in some small flawed way as an echo of that profound story, they represent grace.

[00:20:04]the possibility that human beings can be more than machines fighting for survival. Chad is wrong. And thank God he's wrong. What's really ironic and disturbing is that even when Chad discovers the truth about Tucker and Dale, that they're not the monsters he imagined them to be. He doubles down. He becomes the one who abducts Allison. He wants her at all costs. He's the real monster in this film. And ultimately he faces judgment for it. He discovers that he too is the son of a hillbilly. His last claim to victory, his so-called genetic purity, that itself is undermined. But then he tellingly says this.

[00:20:45]>> You're half hillbilly.

[00:20:49]>> It can't be. They lied to me.

[00:20:54]>> Maybe they just didn't want you to know the truth.

[00:20:56]>> There is no truth.

[00:20:59]Everything is alive.

[00:21:04]>> That's eerily reminiscent of the conversation that Pontius Pilate had with Jesus in John 18. Pilate was a Roman governor. He was more aligned with the way of nature, the Roman Empire, the strong triumphing over the weak. Whereas Jesus, of course, embodied the way of grace. Watch out how the conversation played out. Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world." Then Pilate said to him, "So you are a king."

[00:21:35]Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.

[00:21:43]Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." Pilate said to him, "What is truth?" After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, "I find no guilt in him, but you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So, do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?"

[00:22:02]They cried out again, "Not this man, but Barabbus." Now, Barabus was a robber.

[00:22:08]Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.

[00:22:11]In that moment, it looked as though nature had defeated grace. But no, it was through his own death that Jesus ultimately gained the victory over sin, death, and hell. That's pretty radical.

[00:22:26]But here's what's interesting. If, as the Bible claims, all things were made through Jesus and for Jesus, then it's a little simplistic to say that grace subverts nature. It's not that the world has always been ticking along according to a brutal way of nature read in tooth and claw until Christ finally steps in to turn it upside down. No, Christ is ultimate reality, the eternal son of the father filled with the spirit and the universe was made as an outpouring of their love. So love made the universe and yes, we have fallen from that love.

[00:22:55]But the grace of God reaching down into our fallen nature is really about restoring us to who we were always meant to be. And more than that, the Bible begins with a garden and ends in a garden city. The promise is that in Christ, we can know life to the absolute fullest. Jesus prays the following in John 17. And this is eternal life that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. That fountain of life is the source of all creation. That fountain of life was poured out in self-sacrifice for the sake of creation. And that fountain of life will dwell in the redeemed creation alongside a redeemed humanity into eternity. That's pretty glorious. How does this relate to Tucker and Dale?

[00:23:38]Well, again, it comes across simply as a subversion of horror tropes, but I think it resonates because it's not merely subverting those tropes. It's redeeming them. Tucker and Dale are hillbillies in a horror movie, but they're not the oppressors. Allison is a young college girl in the wilderness, but she is not their victim. Ultimately, she becomes Dale's partner. In this story, your appearance is not what condemns you, it's your heart. Chad might look strong from the outset, but his desire to stratify and split the human race into the elites and the worthless, that is shown to be the truly hellish thing in this movie. The brief opening found footage clip at the start of the film, which seems to be set after the end of the film implies that Chad is somehow still alive. Just a hint there that the deliverance from evil in this film isn't ultimate. Well, there we go. Tucker and Dale versus Evil. This movie is a lot of fun, but when you press into it, it's deeper than you think. By subverting the typical horror formula, it ends up resonating, perhaps unintentionally, with a deeper story, the triumph of grace over the way of nature. My name is Thomas Thurer. Do subscribe if you'd like to stay in the loop with my videos.

[00:24:46]Thank you so much for watching, and I will see you soon.