Tucker and Dale vs. Evil: Review and Plot Summary

I took voice notes while watching Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. (Not that I haven’t seen it 400 times) The app I use takes my voice notes and turns them into words but also gives it a name based on what I’ve been saying. It must use some type of AI. In this case, it called this Tucker and Dale encounter college kids and chaos. It’s perfect. So let’s get into the chaos.

As usual, I’ll be spoiling the movie below, so head out now if you don’t want to know everything that happens.

An investigative journalist is walking through the scene of the crime. She’s telling us about the murdering that went out and how the killer was never found. She is also talking about how many awards she’s going to win. Cart before the horse, so to speak. She rounds a corner and is confronted by a crazed man with half a face. Presumably our killer. He kills her on camera and confirms that for us. He takes out the camera man next. I guess he’s going for part 2.

The screen reads 3 days ago. I read it in the Spongebob voice because while I wasn’t that into Spongebob; he is a cultural phenomenon. A group of college friends are heading out for a little camping. The 4 dudes are all part of the same frat and despite the fact that everyone in this car probably knows that, they decide to loudly scream about it. I bet they’re fun. They get passed by a beat up work truck with 2 hillbillies in it. They immediately think the hillbillies are weird. Sure. But who was just shouting about what frat they’re in?

The kids realize they forgot the beer! What camping vacation is complete without copious amounts of beer? They stop at a rundown gas station to pick up provisions. You guys are so overpaying. There are lots of hillbillies at the gas station and these kids are scared of them all. Kids, you are out in the deep country. I don’t know what you expected, but these are just the locals. Inside the store, Allison (Katrina Bowden) grabs bug spray off the shelf. One of the hillbillies, Dale (Tyler Labine), is behind it looking at her. He quickly looks away, but she’s already creeped out. She grabs her friend and they head out quickly.

Outside, Dale is at the truck talking to his best friend Tucker (Alan Tudyk). He tells Tucker he wishes he had the confidence to talk to a girl like Allison. Tucker comes in clutch with the dating advice. Tucker says to just be himself. And smile and laugh. That’s how you seem approachable. And is why I always wear a scowl. Dale grabs an emotional support sickle and walks over. He asks the kids if they’re going camping. Then laughs manically. The kids are creeped out and one of them, the Chaddest Chad (Jesse Moss) does some mid-at-best karate and shoos him away.

Poor Dale is horribly embarrassed. I think he may have misunderstood Tucker’s advice. The two are driving out to their new vacation home in the woods. Dale’s replaying his failure with Allison. It seems he has always struggled with the ladies. Blue and red lights in the background interrupt this bonding moment for the boys. Since both of them are drinking beer, they panic and Tucker drops a whole can into his lap. Quick on his feet, Dale reaches over to retrieve and hide the evidence. But surely not the smell?? Dale’s shirt gets stuck in the buckle, making everything look like something a little more spicy is going on. Dale rips his shirt off just as the cop walks up.

Even though Dale is shirtless and the truck has to smell like a dive bar the cop lets them off with a warning about a broken turn signal. He advises them not to head out into the wood. Apparently, some terrible things have happened there. Tucker and Dale have a vacation home waiting for them, so like good little characters, they ignore the harbinger.

The roll up to the cabin and are amazed at the quality. Even a little stunned that the real estate agent called it a fixer upper. I am, frankly, not even sure it is structurally sound, but I’m a soft suburban girl, so I probably shouldn’t be trusted to evaluate. The inside would send me running in less time than it would take for my asthma to set in. The room is full of cobwebs, busted ass furniture, creepy newspaper cutouts, and a mobile of tea bags. There’s what looks like some whale bones hanging about too. A treasure trove of oddities, if you will.

Tucker is taking the glorious room in. He leans against a beam that yep isn’t structurally sound, and it falls away somehow, causing another nail-filled beam to fly down toward him. Dale comes in clutch again and pushes Tucker out of the way.

The college kids are setting up for tent camping. They are wildly overdressed for the occasion. Wearing, like jeans, polos, miniskirts, and even heels. Have they seen the woods before? Chad pops down on a log and takes a long drag of his smokes, and then his inhaler. Okay buddy, we have had different experiences around smoke as asthmatics. He tells them a story about how, in these very woods, a group of kids just like them were hunted down by HILLBILLIES and only one person lived to tell the story. I don’t really find Chad credible, and neither do his friends.

One kid finds a lake. They are frankly so interchangeable that I don’t remember which. Everyone but Chad heads over to do some skinny dipping. Let’s meet these kids. So you know Chad and Allison. Then there are the frat bros, Mitch (Adam Beauchesne) who wears a repairman outfit, Chuck (Travis Nelson) who has the car, Mike (Joseph Allen Southerland) who has nothing special about him, Todd (Alex Arsenault) who wears a hat, and Jason (Brandon Jay McLaren) who is the only one with sense most of the time. The girls are Chloe (Chelan Simmons) who dressed like they were going clubbing and Naomi (Christie Laing) who criticises her for it.

Allison is getting her stuff from the car when Chad struts up. Very creepy like. He is holding an axe for no discernible reason and putting the moves on her. Badly. She isn’t into it. He kisses her anyway until she squirms out from under him. We await his death with anticipation.

Tucker and Dale are fishing in the lake when the kids all start jumping in. Tucker is pretty interested in getting a closer look, but Dale is horrified by the suggestion. They turn to see Allison undressing on a rock, but she is startled by them and falls into the lake. But then doesn’t come back up. For like too long. Dale jumps in to save her and pulls her into the boat. The kids see this, so Tucker, in his infinite wisdom, shouts to them, ‘We got your friend!’. Those kids scatter like they just saw a door-to-door salesman. This is not who you want on your side in situations. They will abandon you for a free dip in dots.

The kids run back to Chad to tell him that the hillbillies captured Allison and are probably going to murder her. See, this is what happens when you run first and ask questions never. Chad is hyped about this. He is ready to go to battle. The others think they should call the police, but he is not having it. Only Chuck gets away to take the car to find help since the phones don’t work.

The next morning, Allison wakes up in Dale’s room in the murder adjacent vacation home and screams her head off when Dale comes in with a tray of pancakes. This is an understandable reaction. Naturally, Dale assumes she is afraid of pancakes. As are we all. He runs off to make her something else. He comes back in with bacon and eggs and things have calmed a bit. She remembers nothing from the night before, so he fills her in. She’s pretty peeved that her friends just abandoned her to two strangers but is happy to be alive. And it turns out she and Dale have some things in common, so they sit down and play a little Trivial Pursuit.

The college kids are outside staking out the vacation home. Wearing the same exact clothing from yesterday. That’s disgusting. No one packed any change of clothes? They’re all too scared to knock on the door, so they play rock paper scissors and Mitch is the lucky one. They don’t know that Tucker is outside cutting down some logs. Before Mitch even gets halfway to the door, Tucker chainsaws into a bee nest and starts running like a bat out of hell from the bees. Mitch sees him coming and runs, assuming this is a murderous chainsaw thing. They run through the woods, Tucker waving the chainsaw at bees and Mitch not paying any attention to where he is going. So much so that Mitch impales himself on a fallen tree branch. Sorry Mitch. We didn’t care about you at all. But damn, you must run super fast to be able to impale yourself. You missed your calling.

Dale is really good at Trivial Pursuit. Ally has no chance to beat him. They talk a bit about school with Dale, saying he didn’t go for long. Ally is getting her degree in psychology. She feels like a lot of the world’s ills are do to lack of communication. She’s about to get one hell of a lesson in that one. Tucker walks in just covered in stings. He’s pretty mad that he hasn’t gotten any help from Dale yet. But he plops down and pours beer all over his injuries. This is not the type of alcohol that you can use as a disinfectant. It’s beer. There’s like so much sugar, but sure. Dale walks over to help him pull out what must be 400 stingers.

Tucker tells Ally he saw her friends, but Mitch must be allergic to bees because he ran off so fast. She wants to go find them, but Dale, who really just wants to hang out with her more, tells her he will so she can rest. I see your scheme, Dale, and I respect it.

The college kids found Mitch impaled on the tree and, of course, blame Tucker. Who had a chainsaw and probably wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of impaling him, but again, here we are. They hear Tucker and Dale looking for them and hide. Dale is telling Tucker how hard he beat Allison. Obviously talking about the game, but the kids don’t hear that. So. Evil hillbillies confirmed. The kids won’t come out of hiding, so Dale carves a message into a tree that reads, ‘We got ur friend.’ Guys. Just try to be less ominous in your communications.

They go back to wait for Ally’s friends to come pick her up. She gets bored and heads outside to help Dale dig a pit for the outhouse. Tucker is chipping wood. Is that how you say that? He’s using a wood chipper and putting wood into it. The college kids see Ally digging and think that, of course, she is digging her own grave. With a smile. Dale helps her out of the pit and is pretty impressed by her. They don’t have much time to discuss her impressive skills because they are ambushed by all of her friends.

Dale sees them and waves, but Ally sees Todd coming at Dale with a spear and when he turns he knocks her out and into the pit with his shovel. He then trips into the pit. Finally, Todd falls into the pit after them, and onto his spear. Dale screams as Todd dies on top of him. Tucker doesn’t hear any of this because he is running that wood chipper. Yes. It’s that. Mike pulls out a penknife that wouldn’t kill a squirrel and charges. Tucker leans over for more wood and Mike leaps headfirst into the wood chipper. Tucker turns back and tries to get him out, to no avail. This is seen by the two girls who think he pushed him in.

Tucker runs inside and tells Dale that a kid just threw himself into the wood chipper. Dale is ready to call the police. But Tucker’s actually the logical one here. I mean, what are they going to think when they find 3 dead kids and a knocked out girl in the house? Tucker is like. We gotta clean this shit up good.

Chad is so happy about all of this chaos. It is spooky. Jason tells him he is messed up. The kid who left earlier to get the police is back and Chad does not want police help. PEOPLE HAVE DIED CHAD. Everyone else is sick of him and books it to the cruiser. They all jump in and take them to the cabin. Where Tucker and Dale are pulling half of a body around looking to dispose of it. Looking hella suspicious.

Tucker tries to explain that he thinks this is a suicide pact. That the kid threw himself into it. Dale tells the cop that Ally can totally vouch for them…except…she’s still knocked out. This isn’t helping their case much. The cop tells them to bring him inside so he can assess the situation. He actually seems to believe them but tells them they will be lucky to get by with 2 counts of manslaughter as he leans on the pole…oh no…not that pole. The spiky nail pole shoots down and slams into his head. Tucker says he looks like he’s gonna walk it off but, I disagree. And I’m right.

College kids are screaming from in the car. Chuck grabs the cop’s gun and tries to shoot Tucker and Dale. But nothing happens. Dale, helpful dude that he is, tells him the safety is still on. In taking it off, Chuck shoots himself. Do not play with guns. Chad runs up and grabs the gun and just sprays everywhere. Now I’m no expert, but it looks like a pistol that would not have 80 bullets in it.

Tucker and Dale are lying on the floor of the cabin having a real bro moment when they notice Dale’s dog is missing. Absolutely not movie. I do not do dog deaths. Period. They look outside and see Chad, the worst every, holding the gun at the dog. Tucker comes up with a plan for Dale to use the nail gun to lay cover for him to save to dog. Tucker will sneak over while hiding behind exactly one sprig from a tree. It basically works. The dog is all good, but Tucker…not so much.

They hang Tucker upside down from a tree. He has no idea what their problem is. He offers them 10 to 12 beers for his freedom. Considering how into beer they were at the beginning, I’m surprised this didn’t work. Instead, they cut off his fingers.

Ally is finally conscious and Dale gives her the 411 on the last 4 hours or so. She cannot believe her friends would hurt anyone. So when there is a knock at the door, Dale hides in the corner but she goes to get it. One look at the body laden front yard is enough to convince her. She grabs a package from the porch and brings it in. It has Tucker’s fingers inside and a note that reads, ‘Now we got ur friend Try and get him.’ Ally thinks they shouldn’t escalate things, but girly, you are holding Tucker’s fingers. We are beyond that now.

Dale finds Tucker, but he has been upside down for too long and before he can effectively communicate that it’s a trap, a spear comes down at him. It strikes right between his legs but doesn’t hit anything. Dale cuts Tucker down but does absolutely nothing to soften the fall. Tucker lets us know that Chad has some issues. Thanks Tuck, but I think we got that memo.

The remaining college kids use this time to sneak into the cabin. They see Ally and are sneaking and whispering, but she’s like, uh, stop that. I’m fine. I’m literally alone. Chad starts pouring gas everywhere to burn it down. Ally protests that this is their vacation home. You can’t just do that. He looks up, so pissed off. He asks her, ‘Are you falling in love with a hillbilly?’ She says no, but we see all the signs. Her friend, who took sociology 101 says she is sure it’s Stockholm syndrome. Quick armchair diagnosing, Naomi.

Chad is threatening Ally with an axe over the whole falling in love thing when Dale walks in and rescues her. Ally thinks this is the perfect time for group therapy. I think Ally needs to select a new career path. Tucker is not into this, so he uses some more beer disinfectant for his fingers.

Ally gets everyone some tea. Chad is quick to make sure it isn’t chamomile, because that messes with his asthma. It’s just earl grey so he can chill. Ally asks him to share his story of the events. He decides to start with before he was born. Sir. Relevance??? Apparently, his mother was the survivor of the hillbilly attack he had so gleefully told everyone about earlier. And his father’s body was never found. Also, it was a Memorial Day massacre, so my timing on this is accidentally excellent.

His mother went nuts and was institutionalized, but his grandmother told him this story over and over. What the hell, gma? That is going to mess up a kid. Tucker and I both roll our eyes over the irrelevancy of all of this. Chloe and Jason walk up to the cabin and see everyone having tea. Jason thinks they must be trapped. He could do with some better body language reading abilities.

Now it is Dale’s turn to share. He starts off by saying he is sorry that Chad’s family was massacred. But also that he would have been like 6 then so he had nothing to do with it. Ally thanks them both for sharing. But we shared nothing about the last 2 days and made no progress toward resolution. This was pointless. Someone stab Chad.

In comes Jason with a weed wacker. Tucker jumps out of the way so Naomi gets her face wacked. Chad is going for Dale, but Tucker saves him. Instead, Chad goes for an oil lamp and throws it into the propane. It lights Jason on fire. Chloe offers to help and grabs a mason jar of what I assume she thinks is water to dump on him. It’s moonshine. The situation is rapidly getting out of hand. Chloe sits down amongst a bunch of gas cans, lights a cigarette and waits for death.

The house explodes. Only Ally, Tucker, and Dale made it out. Ally worries she is a terrible therapist. Dale assures her she did fine. Don’t lie Dale. Ally you were terrible. They look back at the ruined cabin and see Chad rise from the ashes. He takes a puff of his inhaler because of all the smoke but gets up pretty okay. His face is half burnt. Like that dude in the beginning!

The three run for Tucker’s truck and speed off. A little too incautiously because they slam into a tree. By the time Dale comes to Tucker is outside the truck and Ally is gone. Tucker saw Chad take her somewhere. Tucker tells Dale that he was always jealous of him and he can do more than he thinks. We find out they have been friends since childhood and they have a surprisingly sweet moment in this horror comedy. Tucker says the dog will be able to find Ally.

Chad tied Ally up to wood splitter and is once again trying to force himself on her with his burned skin still pealing off. She is still not into it and this man cannot handle rejection. Dale finds her and tries to untie her, but Chad was like a boy scout or something because it is knotted up good. Chad turns on the wood-saw the moment he sees Dale enter and Ally is slowly moving toward it. Dale finally takes the quick route and grabs a chainsaw when Chad rolls in and fights him. They go back and forth, all the while things are looking serious for Ally.

Dale throws an axe with impressive precision and cuts her free. She joins in the fight with Chad to free Dale. Instead of finishing him off here, they run. And because they are both dumb as rocks, they run upstairs instead of anywhere helpful. They find some chamomile tea, which Dale stores for potential use, but also a bunch of newspapers talking about the Memorial Day Massacre. Turns out Chad’s mom was impregnated by one of the hillbillies.

When Chad breaks in the show him the paper and tell him he is half hillbilly! It’s not an ethnicity Ally. Chad is horrified that he was lied to his whole life, and this does nothing to make him feel better, so he goes after them both. Dale throws the chamomile in his face and Chad gasps. He walks backward and falls out a window. I guess they think he is dead, but we saw the beginning part, so he is still out there murdering.

We cut to Tucker in the hospital. Dale walks in looking dapper in his bowling shirt. Tucker is feeling fine on all these sweet drugs. Dale even brought him in a beer. We see they put Tucker’s fingers back on but one doesn’t match super well… Tucker wants to know if Dale ever asked Ally out. He didn’t. But before we get too disappointed. She is going bowling with Dale tonight.

At bowling, Dale gives Ally a gift. A lovely pink helmet. It is hard to keep that girl conscious. Dale starts to tell her how he feels, but she interrupts him with a deep kiss. Looks like Dale got his happy ending. Hopefully Tucker had insurance.

Don’t miss checking out Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It is one of my favorites and I watch it a few times a year. My teen’s been known to shout at bewildered people that ‘these college kids have been killing themselves all over my property!’ And then we laugh.