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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil (Film)

by Nicholas Adams | July 27, 2011 15:27 | Edited July 27, 2011 15:29

Gleefully usurping traditional genre conventions, this original horror flick makes you squirm, laugh and scream – often at the same time.

Existing in the woods of a wrong turn horror movie, Tucker & Dale vs Evil starts out ominously. Through hand held night vision footage, a reporter and her camera man explore a sinister crime scene. Moments after the journalist says, "the police missed something here, I can feel it," they're attacked by a disfigured man.

 

Three days earlier, a group of college kids on a camping trip in the woods of West Virginia, joke about being in the Deep South. At a last-stop gas station, the movie takes the right turn, becoming a satire on the stereotypes of the genre.

 

We're introduced to Tucker and Dale, just two unsuspecting men (with an affinity for overalls and trucker hats) on holiday at their creepy cabin. They repeatedly cross paths with the judgmental campers and find themselves in the middle of a series of misunderstandings and unfortunate events, which leave them looking like the bad guys. But appearances can be deceiving...

 

When Allison (30 Rock's Katrina Bowden), the most sympathetic of the campers is knocked out in the first of these misunderstandings, Tucker and Dale take her back to their cabin to nurse her back to health. The college kids see this as an abduction and attack the hillbillies. Proving Murphy's Law, that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, the situation escalates with Tucker and Dale the unwitting witnesses to a series of killings involving accidents with wood chippers and chain saws.

 

The real hilarity of this flick comes in seeing the role reversal, with the college kids as hunters, and hillbillies as prey. When Allison tries to act as the voice of reason, her friends think she's suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Sub-plots of romance between Dale and Allison, and the campfire story of the 20th anniversary of a massacre in the area, tie in perfectly.

 

The comedic timing is perfect with many laugh-out-loud moments, and seeing the horror movie conventions coming before they actually happen makes you squirm in your seat.