31 Days of Halloween: Handsome Guys

2024, Nam Dong-hyup (feature premiere) -- download

Or Haenseomgaijeu.

This Korean movie is billed as a remake of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, which we are huge fans of -- my post does not give it justice, and I think its time for a rewatch and a new post. In the original movie, the "evil" turns out not to be some supernatural entity in the "cabin in the woods" but more along the psycho lines that the college kids assume should be attributed to Tucker and Dale, but ends up being One of Their Own. This remake decided to embrace the classic cabin aspect of the movie and ... well, I will get to that.

Kang Jae-pil (Lee Sung-min, The Moon) and Park Sang-goo (Lee Hee-joon, Badland Hunters; weird; I wouldn't paste "full names" if they were English names, but I somehow seem compelled to do it here) are not hillbillies, in the traditional sense... is there even an equivalent to Alabama or Tennessee in South Korea? Would I even recognize the cultural tropes, if there were? Either way, the guys are definitely weirdoes -- odd haircuts, weird style and socially awkward to the extreme, without even noticing it. Especially to the group of influencer kids they meet at the rest stop / convenience store -- wow, South Korean rural roadside convenience stories are pretty much small department stores. The influencers are on their way to a majestic lakeside "cabin", a trope influencers have spread world wide, while the two friends, carpenters by trade, are on their way to a weird house, entirely not traditional Korean-style, that Jae-pil sunk their savings into. The kids are there to pickup snacks and booze, while the boys are picking up reno gear, all sharp objects that could be used to kill people. When one of the girls is startled by Sang-goo, and she is further frightened when he tries to help her up, the tone of conflict is set between the two groups.

It should be noted that the movie has a Satanic exorcism preamble where an American priest fails to exorcise Baphomet from a young woman, and we see a pentagram carved into a stone in the basement of an old .... cabin in the woods. Not like I need to fill in blanks for you, but it does show a distinct departure from the original movie, in that their will be real supernatural Evil here.

I commented that should "Tucker & Dale" ever be remade, the kids would definitely be "influencers" and we would take even greater glee in watching them jump into a woodchipper. Why is it we so dislike influencer kids? Its almost like they have influenced us into thinking that.

So, the boys get to their house, and begin cleaning it up, while the influencer kids do what they do best, snipe at each other and pick favourites. Oh, I forgot to mention, on the drive up earlier, the kids hit a goat in the middle of the road, and just leave it there. When the boys come by soon after, they are found by a pair of buffoonish cops, carrying the tarped dead creature out of the road. The lead buffoon assumes they are doing some illegal, in fact, he needs them to be doing something illegal, as two so completely ugly, clownish dudes cannot not be doing something illegal. But they aren't so they have to be let go. Goats, Satan worship, you get it.

Now where was I ? Oh yes, both groups at their houses doing what they do, which ends up with Mi-na (Gong Seung-yeon, Aloners), the girl who got frightened by Sang-goo, the "nice girl" who is ostracized by the rest, down by the lake while the boys are fishing and, again, they startled her and she falls in. Let's just say the lake has a drop and she sinks like a stone, requiring Jae-pil to dive in to save her. She also requires some resuscitation, and the next morning she awakens in their somewhat-cleaned-up house, initially scared at what these weirdos are doing with her in their house, but quickly charmed by Sang-goo's harmless friendly behaviour and the massive breakfast spread laid out. The two end up getting along swimmingly while Jae-pil goes out to do yard cleaning (wood chipper, chain saw, etc.). The kids have noticed she is missing and wander around looking for her, coming across the boys cabin. They are immediately convinced the boys have kidnapped her, but one of the kids, the Mean One, really only cares that Mi-na has his phone. And he's an influencer that cannot be without his phone.

What follows is a tragic black-comedy of errors. Its not presented as well as the original movie, but basically each of the kids are compelled to attack the Jae-pil, starting with just after he (chain)saws into a log full of wasps, those big nasty Asian wasps. The kids run screaming as he runs screaming from  the wasps, waving his chainsaw around like the mad man they all assume he is. One of the girls is impaled. The horrified boys attack, but a mislaid power cord electrocutes one, and trips the other, who falls into the planter box, which looks like a coffin Sang-goo "made" Min-na build (for herself) -- said planter box has lots of exposed nails. Ouch. And then the final kid jumps at Jae-pil, who has made it back to his wood pile, chipper munching on the rotting wood he has cleaned up, and the kid misses Jae-pil and .... grrrinnnnnnnd .... tomato paste.

All of the kids have very quickly died due to their own ineptitude and misunderstandings. And, well that pentagram in the basement under the boys cabin is suddenly lighting up with fiery symbols  -- one symbol for each dead kid. Except, the count is off and ... ohhh, electrocuted kid is not dead. And his awakening, as well as the return of the kid I forgot to mention has an unfortunate run in with the not-dead goat (I admit, I nodded off during that brief sequence) leads to the final act that is ... well, if this movie is a remake of "Tucker & Dale", then the final act is a very blatant nod to the original orginal Evil Dead complete with cackling possessed people in basements. And drawing on some pretty common tropes from Asian horror that I have commented on before (religion, destiny, legacy, family), the just-woke-up-from-a-coma younger brother of the original possessed women from the preamble has to fight off the proper now-raised Baphomet devil kid. Oh, and the buffoonish cops get mixed up in it as well.

It was actually a pretty decent remake of the original, capturing enough to make us smile, and being new and culturally appropriate to probably appeal to an entirely different audience. It doesn't have the bite of the original, and that is mainly because it does draw upon horror tropes as being actual horror, instead of all just a "ooops, we misunderstood" comedy of errors.