Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk star in this horror-comedy that puts the murderous hillbilly horror trope on its ear.

A group of annoying college kids, led by Allison (Katrina Bowden) and Chad (Jesse Moss) are headed up into the woods for a weekend of debauchery but are extremely creeped out when they come across a pair of hillbillies, Tucker (Tudyk) and Dale (Labine) who are also on their way into woods to inspect the worn down cabin Tucker recently acquired.

Through a series of misunderstandings and bloody occurrences, Allison ends up with Tucker and Dale, and her friends think she is being tortured and killed, so they decide to take matters into their own hands and confront the ‘evil’ hillbillies.

The bodies begin to pile up, all in bloody and violent ways and the laughs keep time with them as the film subverts expectations, and Tudky shines like comedic gold. Sure there’s a bit of a goofy rom-com arc as we learn that Allison isn’t as chic as she appears, and a little thing begins to grow between her and Dale, which just frustrates Tucker all the more, but it’s all in good fun.

In fact, you know a good percentage of the characters are going to die, and you know it’s going to be in increasingly bloody mishaps that will look like Dale or Tucker are just madmen of the mountains – the bee/chainsaw incident is incredibly funny and ends with a brutal kill that just stops everything.

Tudyk is brilliant at comedy, and he can play it straight, subtle, or broad. He pulls out all the stops here, embracing his inner hillbilly to make Tucker incredibly hilarious, and Labine makes Dale surprisingly endearing.

The college kids are run-of-the-mill slasher film fodder, and though they may not deserve what they get, they definitely learn before things end that sometimes judging a person on how they look, or their social status is a bit of dick move.

The kills and the visual effects are a lot of fun, they walk the edge of gory, but they also make you laugh out loud, and I don’t want to give any of them away.

Tudyk has been a favourite of mine since Firefly, and I love seeing him pop up everywhere and I always know that I will enjoy his performance, he just goes for it each and every time, and I love that.

This is a really fun riff on the slasher genre and could serve as a fun gateway to other slasher films or could just be a fun evening on its own. I mean who doesn’t like Tudyk?