Cottage Country

Todd and Cammie are at his family's cottage for what is supposed to be a romantic week to themselves. But then - much to their annoyance - his brother Salinger shows up unexpectedly with his girlfriend. It doesn't help the situation that the brothers are polar opposites. Anyway, the two get into a fight and Todd ends up accidentally killing Salinger with an ax. By accident, obviously.

This, by the way, is the highlight of the film. It is a sudden and hilarious WTF? moment.

Anyway, as the film progresses they first have to get rid off the brother's girlfriend. After they return from a canoe trip, during which they dispose of the body parts, the house if full of Salinger's friends. Todd and Cammie have to pretend to not have seen Salinger. Only one of the guests gets suspicious. Yep, you guessed it...he dies, but not before he alerted the local police of Sal and his girlfriend being missing.

The couple has to spin a wider net of lies to deflect any suspicions until goodhearted Todd can't take it anymore and want to turn himself in, much to the dismay of the ever more annoying Cammie. This leads to more bloodshed that leaves Cammie dead and Todd with a brain injury.

Sadly, this had so much more promise that the film never lives up to. Tyler Labine plays to his strengths as the hapless nice guy dealt an unfortunate hand, but the Cammie character was dis likable from the get-go which made her turning into a conniving bitch less interesting and not funny.

Side note, Todd's father is played by Windom Earle from Twin Peaks.

Oh, well.

4/10

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

One of the most hilarious horror comedies in, like, ever.

Tucker and Dale go into the woods in the Appalachian Mountains to fix up Tucker's newly acquired "vacation home" aka cabin in the woods. At the same time, nearby, a group of college kids are camping.

After a short encounter in a small store, they run into each other again. The college kids go skinny dipping while the two country boys are fishing. One of the kids, Allison slips and falls into the water, hitting her head. Tucker and Dale come to her rescue and as they pull her into their boat, they are immediately mistaken for psycho killers by the rest of Allison's group. Leaving messages like "we got ur friend" carved into a log with an ax are not helping the communication difficulties.

What transpires then are a string of very creative accidental deaths by the college idiots as they try to "rescue" their friend from the psychos in the cabin. They run into pointy branches, fall on their homemade spears, jump headfirst into a wood chipper (and Tuckers asking the bottom half of the kid, "are you okay?"), shoot themselves in the face and so on.

It is awesome.

Also, Tucker and Dale are perfectly cast, played by Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine.

9/10