Alan Tudyk

Sally Field drops in to watch son direct a bloody offbeat satire near Calgary

It’s nearing dusk in the mosquito-infested Alberta woods and Eli Craig is fussing over how to choreograph some intense violence.

The climactic scenes scheduled for tonight’s shoot of the comedy-horror film Tucker&Dale vs. Evil involve, in no particular order, an exploding cabin, a hatchet attack by a baby-faced psychopath, 30 Rock’s scantily clad Katrina Bowden being violently knocked to the ground and someone catching on fire. Judging by the splashes of movie blood drying on co-stars Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine’s overalls and faces, the violence isn’t reserved for just the climax, either. In fact, one crew member for the low-budget Alberta-shot film has calculated that someone dies every eight minutes in Craig’s gory directorial debut.

All in all, these aren’t the sort of scenes you want to be shooting in front of your visiting mother —even if she is two-time Academy Award-winning actress Sally Field.

"Does this remind you of Brothers and Sisters a little bit?" Craig quips to his mom, referring to Field’s TV show about the WASPish trials and tribulations of the upper-class Walker family on ABC.

"The dining room scenes," Field answers, without missing a beat.

Field does not appear in her son’s debut film, although she did offer. And, obviously, Tucker& Dale vs. Evil has nothing to do with Brothers&Sisters or anything else Field has done in the past. Like many offspring of famous Hollywood types, the 37-year-old Craig has been intent on forging his own path.

"It’s a little weird," Craig admits. "I’ve never had her on a set before. . . . To me it’s really important to define my career on my own and always have."

"I can honestly say, so far in my life, she’s only been an excellent mentor and excellent guide, but not someone who has been able to get me work. But it’s a fantastic resource to say, ’Hey mom, I got a question about working with actors.’ "

The film—which producers hope to release theatrically sometime in 2010—is in the middle of a 25-day Alberta shoot. Areas of Bragg Creek, Bowness and Cochrane have been used as settings. But on this day, the spooky woods behind the Bow River Ranch west of Calgary are subbing in for the backwoods of the Appalachian Mountains, offering an appropriately gothic backdrop for the film’s gory finale.

At first glance, Tucker&Dale vs. Evil certainly seems to have the potential to launch Craig into a directing career. It’s nothing if not unique. Craig spent 10 years toiling in the industry, initially as an actor before directing shorts and music videos.

It took him three years to put the pieces together for his debut, which he co-wrote with Morgan Jurgenson. It’s genre-bending premise is a satire of the old "college-kids-lost-in-the-woods-versus-hillbillies" cliche. Bowden plays a lovely college student who is saved by two good oil’ boys, including the thick-skulled Dale (Labine) and the slightly more intelligent Tucker (Tudyk). A series of misunderstandings and gory accidents pit the gormless heroes against some college kids who think the backwoods pair is up to no good. Much mayhem ensues. In fact, the unofficial tag line for the film is: "A perfect love story, except for the minor woodchipper incident."

"People get killed in some pretty gruesome ways, but there’s a lot of comedy in it too," says Bowden, on a break from shooting. "It’s hard to explain because getting killed by a woodchipper is never funny. But somehow we’ve kind of made it funny."

Bowden is perhaps best known for her role as Tina Fey’s alluringly attired assistant Cerie Xerox in 30 Rock. Craig seems to have caught her as her star is on the rise, not unlike Tudyk and Labine’s. The Juilliard-trained Tudyk played Steve the Pirate in Dodgeball: a True Underdog Story, recently had a dark recurring role in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse and will next appear in the TV remake of the 1980s sci-fi show V. Labine spent two seasons playing the wisecracking sidekick Bert in the sci-fishow Reaper and has been cast in the lead of the new Fox sitcom Sons of Tuscon, which will premiere in January after The Simpsons.

Tucker&Dale vs. Evil gave the Vancouver actor the chance to star in a horror film—and potentially a cult film. Both of which are on his to-do list as an actor.

"It was a really fun departure for me," says Labine, about playing the dull-witted Dale. "It is comedy, which is kind of my roots. But the hillbilly aspect of it really appealed to me because I’ve never really played a really base, stupid hillbilly. Which is tricky for me, because my instinct as a comedy actor is to improv all the time. With this one, you can’t really do it. The character doesn’t allow it. He’s just too f---ing stupid. He has nothing witty to say."

Tudyk says the comedy in the film comes directly from Craig and Jurgenson’s inventive script, which spared the stars from engaging in a transparent shtick to get laughs.

"It’s an outrageous situation, people are dying all over the place and they are accidentally dying," Tudyk says. "It’s a misunderstanding between two camps. It’s so funny how long Eli can maintain both worlds, both viewpoints. The things we do are constantly reaffirming in their eyes their viewpoints of us. And the things they’re doing are showing us that they are completely insane."

As for Field, she says she has not offered any tips to her son about directing, nor did she encourage or discourage him from entering the business. But she will go out on a limb to say she thinks his script is a winner.

"It’s hilariously funny," she says. "It’s very, very funny. And the world needs to laugh right now. . . . I kept saying, ’Isn’t there a role for me?’ "