Tucker and Dale vs Evil is a perfect summer horror film. Horror movies set during summertime immerse audiences in physical activities—swimming, hiking, vacationing, camping—ideal plot devices for dropping heroes in the fight of their lives. Which is perhaps why, for many of us at least, Jaws (1975) keeps us out of the water, and Friday the Thirteenth (1980) compels many camp counselors to rethink their summer vacations.
But maybe more terrifying, though, are the types of rustic antagonists that audiences encounter in scary movies about rural America. Their summer getaways, although beautiful, offer up some nasty locals. Think Leatherface swinging his chainsaw, the banjo-playing rapists of Deliverance (1972), or the motel owners in Motel Hell (1980) who turn their guests into world-famous sausages, and we can begin to understand why city slickers prefer sweltering urban summers to provincial dangers.
