Do we look like a couple of psycho killers to you?
When I saw Tucker and Dale vs Evil at last year's HorrorHound Weekend, I said I wanted to see it again in its completed form before passing final judgment on it. Well, with The Cabin in the Woods coming across as the final word in self-aware horror-comedies, Tucker and Dale can't help but feel a bit like a scaled-down also-ran, but this is not to say that it doesn't have it own, modest charms.
Co-written and directed by Eli Craig, the film stars Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine as the title pair, a couple of West Virginia hillbillies on the way to their brand-new vacation home (in actuality, a run-down cabin in the woods) when they make a poor impression on a vehicle full of college kids -- just the first in a chain of misunderstandings that makes their weekend getaway less than ideal. Actually, after its fake-out opening the film introduces us to the carload of college kids first since they would normally be the protagonists of a horror film set in the backwoods. It's quick to shift the perspective to the hapless Tucker and Dale, though, which means the only two co-eds who develop any personality are psych major Katrina Bowden, whose "abduction" is the event that triggers the escalating tension, and asthmatic psycho asshole Jesse Moss, who turns out to be the real villain of the piece. Along the way, Craig throws in tons of sight gags and enough blood and gore to satisfy the purists, but he loses me when the dumbass college kids continue misreading the situation -- in spite of all the evidence that they are misreading it -- just to keep the plot moving along. I've also never been entirely sold on the title, but it's a bit late to change that now, I think.
When John Landis directed Burke and Hare in 2010, it had been over a decade since Susan's Plan, an independent black comedy he also wrote and produced -- and which failed to get much in the way of traction. In the years since he's made a pair of well-received documentaries and done a fair bit of television work (including episodes of Masters of Horror and Fear Itself), but another feature proved elusive until Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft's screenplay landed on his doorstep. In light of An American Werewolf in London's continued popularity, a return trip to the British Isles must have seemed like just the thing to get his career back on track.
His first attempt at a period piece that's actually based on historical events (as opposed to the likes of Three Amigos or Oscar), Burke and Hare is set in 1828, when Edinburgh was the medical capital of the world, at least according to the cheerful hangman who acts as our narrator (Bill Bailey). There, the title characters (Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis) take up the very lucrative trade of procuring fresh cadavers for the teaching hospital of Dr. Knox (Tom Wilkinson) when his old-school rival from the Royal College (Tim Curry) cuts off his supply. After the first two bodies essentially fall into their laps, though, Pegg and Serkis have to resort to murder to fill Wilkinson's orders and the complications pile up thanks to the ongoing investigation of militia captain Ronnie Corbett. Meanwhile, Pegg becomes smitten with an actress (Isla Fisher) who wants to stage an all-female Macbeth and finds in him an eager backer, and Serkis finds that he can barely keep up with his wife (Jessica Hynes) once the money starts rolling in.
If historical accuracy is what you're after, you'll probably want to look elsewhere, but Landis manages to infuse the story with a rich vein of jet-black humor. He also stages a mini-American Werewolf reunion by giving small roles to David Schofield, Jenny Agutter, and John Woodvine. And it wouldn't be a Landis film without a few cameos, which explains why Christopher Lee, Ray Harryhausen, and Stephen Merchant all turn up for one scene each. It's disappointing that it didn't get a theatrical release over here, though. I'm curious to see how many people would have turned out for it.