Eli Craig
Tucker & Dale vs Evil

This page is dedicated to Roby.

Roby is the classic old-school film buff, the kind that one evening I ask if he’s up for watching a light bedtime movie and it ends up with us watching "Ivan's Childhood." Which might be a masterpiece, and Tarkovskij is undeniable, but I wanted something like "Crank", or maybe "Batman Returns". In short, a film to enjoy with some giggles and goofing around, not the story of a child war orphan who becomes a spy to survive and ends up being executed...
The other day Roby calls me and says, "Dear friend, bring the popcorn, this time I’ve got a splatter comedy you can’t even imagine."
My legs tremble at the suspicion that my dear friend, in a wave of cinematic self-harm, has decided to watch "Mommy Dearest”, prompting me to bring along a copy of "Bronson"; a remarkable film of "fists and prisons," which we'll talk about in another installment because, believe it or not, good old Roby nailed it this time.
And he nailed it damn right!

I don’t know who and when recommended it to him, because by himself he doesn’t reach the Sundance films that aren't exported to Italy, being a good fan of Mereghetti. Not because he’s stupid but just because he’s lazy and excessively self-referential.
Anyway, we were saying that Roby hit the mark: he whipped out this film that showed at Sundance in 2009 titled "Tucker & Dale Vs the Evil." In a few words, a comedy of errors featuring Tucker and Dale, two lumberjacks refurbishing their new lodge in the woods, dealing with the presumed kidnapping of a high school girl and the improbable and counterproductive revenge of her friends. To put it with a few more words, a group of high school students spends a weekend in the woods. At night they all merrily go skinny-dipping, the pretty girl of the moment gets hurt diving and faints, and the rescue gesture by the two lumberjacks is misunderstood by her friends as a kidnapping. From there, the kids try to retrieve the "not kidnapped but just rescued" companion, with the most violent intentions resulting in - alas for them - horrible deaths (there's a nod to "Fargo”... When I saw the kid trip and land in the wood chipper, I asked Roby to sit in front of me on the Ikea rug so I could throw a handful of popcorn at his head).
Then the police will intervene, and many other little things will happen that I highly recommend you watch.

At the end of the movie, I was incredulous.
I told Roby that next week, to return the favor, we’ll watch "Solaris" in the original version with Russian subtitles. Because this cinematic bastard deserves it. He showed me the film I’d been waiting for four years and feared I might never enjoy: when four years ago I stumbled upon "Hot Fuzz” by Wright, my only desire was to see where the director would take the next film. I wanted the gore capable of being undisturbing - not that I mind being disturbed, but gore that knows how not to be gore is something that makes me double over the opposite, which has a lot of gore, splatter and even a bit of Silent Hill - I wanted the absurd irony that doesn’t make you miss Ciccio and Franco, I wanted the parody of a film "blood action punches and violence." Scott Pilgrim would already be quite a hit as it is: it has its popcorn moments, its special effects, and the texts that pop out in a cool way. But hot fuzz was on another level...
Here, with this debut, Eli Craig seems to have sucked the ideas from Wright's brain and spit them onto celluloid. A silly film but never vulgar, genuine despite the production, heartfelt, and always honest with the viewer. Made out of love.

It’s a film where you laugh at disgusting scenes without ever feeling like a poor lobotomized nerd, it has a knack for taking the self-satisfaction out of splatter that makes "The Thing” seem like the manifesto of obscenities. Oh God, maybe I’m exaggerating, I’m not saying my nephew could watch it, but my aunt definitely could.

To conclude: my friend Roby knows it, I love him dearly, I’m happy to join him in Stanley marathons, or study the sequence shot of "The Age of Innocence”.
But I go to the movies to throw popcorn. And now I know it’s the same for him too.