Sundance 2010: Director and Cast Interview: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

By thehorrorchick
January 25th, 2010

Who would have thought that one of the more buzzed about films of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival would be a comedy horror film about hillbillies and the college co-eds that think they’re homicidal? Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is quickly garnering a slew of attention during this year’s festival.

Synopsis
"Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is a backwoods comedy of horrific errors in which two unsuspecting buddies, Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), fall victim to the crazed machinations of a group of spring breakers who have mistaken them for backwoods killers.

When Dale shelves his phobia of the opposite sex to rescue one of the college co-eds, Allison (Katrina Bowden), from drowning, all her friends mistake him for a bearded psychopath hauling their friend away to a shack in the middle of the woods.

In trying to rescue their friend, the college co-eds continually off themselves one by one, and Tucker and Dale try to figure out why these college kids are killing themselves all over Tucker’s property!"

With a sold-out run of screenings, writer/director Eli Craig and actors Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk spent the inaugural weekend of Sundance pretty much on the go the entire time. Dread Central had the opportunity to sit down with the busy trio to talk with them about their film and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil’s place within the confines of the horror genre.

When asked about what inspired the idea for Tucker and Dale, Craig credits the recent string of uninspired “slasher stalking sexy co-ed” flicks as his reasoning behind making the hillbillies in his film more the victims and the attractive college kids the antagonists of the flick.

“I feel like these days we keep getting the same thing over and over. I wanted to turn the genre on its head with this movie. I just wanted to have a little fun and play with horror movie conventions,” said Craig.

Labine and Tudyk both credit Craig’s witty script as the reason they were drawn to the project. Labine said, “I didn’t want to play a dumb redneck hillbilly; I wanted to play a hillbilly with a heart of gold. And that’s what he (Craig) wanted me to do, too, so I think that’s why we just collided on making this project.”

“Some comedies are just so winky and are like ‘This is crazy! We’re in the woods! What are we doing here?’ and he (Craig) didn’t want to do it that way,” explained Tudyk. “We thought if you played up the craziness, it wouldn’t work. We had to play it straight - Eli was adamant about that. And it just worked.”

To see what else the creative forces behind Tucker and Dale vs. Evil had to say about their quirky little Sundance film, check out the video below along with a few stills from the festivities.

- Heather Wixson