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The Hillbillies
In General
- Dumb Is Good: Neither one of them is much in the way of traditional book smarts, but they make up for it in just how kind-hearted and well-meaning they are.
- Face of a Thug: At a glance, they're rather shifty-looking, but it only takes talking to them for a moment to realize that they're both perfectly nice guys.
- Fat and Skinny: Dale and Tucker, respectively.
- Foil: Tucker and Dale are this to the college kids, but especially Chad.
- Chad and the college kids are conventionally attractive, while Tucker and Dale are rather homely-looking guys.
- Chad and the college kids (Except for Allison) are ivory tower fools who are ignorant of blue-collar tasks, while Tucker and Dale are skilled and hardy guys working on fixing their cabin.
- Chad is an arrogant asshole who believes himself to be entitled to women and doesn't think his actions through, while Dale is a shy person who is aware of his flaws and learns to consider the feelings of others which Tucker sometimes makes fun of.
- Good Ol' Boy: Appearance-wise they're about as stereotypically rednecky as one can get but are actually decent (if socially awkward) people.
- Hanlon's Razor: Both of them are decent people just trying to clean up their new home, but the teens believe they are stereotypical homicidal hillbillies from the horror movies. Their "crimes" are just a result of them being in the wrong place at the wrong time while the teens jump to conclusions about their activities.
- Nice Guy: Both of them are nice guys, but Dale especially steals the show.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Dale plays the role of the sensitive guy— he's timid, unsure of himself, and wouldn't hurt a fly. Tucker plays the role of the manly man, as he urges Dale to talk to the girls he thinks are attractive and to stand up for himself.
Dale
Played by: Tyler Labine
A good-natured but shy West Virginia hillbilly looking to fix up his new vacation home in the woods with his best friend.
- Alliterative Name: His full name is Dale Dobson.
- Book Dumb: Dale says he never made it past the third grade but can remember any trivial fact he learns.
- Gentle Giant: He doesn't even like fishing and was pulled by Tucker into it.
- Heroes Love Dogs: Loves his dog, Jangers, which raises the stakes when Chad holds Jangers at gunpoint.
- Hidden Depths: Is a boss at trivia due to his ability to remember every trivial detail he learns.
- Idiot Savant: Remarkable memory, poor education.
- Photographic Memory: Remembers every trivial fact he learns.
- Too Dumb to Live: He's such a passive nice guy that he tells Chuck how to take off the safety of the gun he's trying to shoot them with, much to Tucker's dismay. Thankfully for them, Chuck is even dumber to live and shot himself trying to prove it.
- Younger Than They Look: His large and hairy physique might make you surprised to learn that he's only 26.
Tucker
Played by: Alan Tudyk
A fishing-loving, beer-drinking West Virginia hillbilly looking to fix up his new vacation home in the woods with his best friend.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Justified. When the woodshipper jams after Mike jumped into it, Tucker asks if he's okay when his legs are all that remains. But then, he was clearly in shock over what just happened.
- Fingore: Has two of his fingers (his "bowling fingers") chopped off by Chad while being tortured.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Beer is his solution to everything— he even pours it on his bee stings and finger stubs.
- Lesser Star: While both of the hillbillies get their names in the title, Tucker is distinctly secondary to Dale in story focus. Although he still has a pivotal role to play in the film, as he was the one who got the duo out to fishing which spawned the chain of events.
- Mr. Vice Guy: He's generally perfectly nice and harmless, though he does have a bit of a hot head compared to Dale (though given everything that transpires in the film, it's pretty understandable), and he has no issues spying on Allison while she strips down to skinny dip, which Dale calls him out for.
- Only Sane Man: Compared to Dale. For example, he knows that people won't believe them when they report that college kids are killing themselves on his property. He later chides Dale for telling the one pointing a gun at them that the safety is on.
- The Peeping Tom: Dale calls him out for watching Allison strip down while preparing to skinny dip.
- Shipper on Deck: Encourages Dale to be confident in his abilities to talk to women and supports his efforts to make himself look not so scary to Allison.
The College Kids
In General
- A Friend in Need: While their efforts are misguided and cause a lot of harm, they ultimately come from trying to save Allison when they think she is in danger.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The injuries and subsequent deaths they progressively sustain get pretty gruesome.
- Dwindling Party: Their group becomes smaller and smaller as they try to get Allison back until Chad is the only one alive.
- The Fettered: Most of them get freaked out by what's happening pretty quickly and find the idea of escalating the situation further crazy. The exception is Chad, who drags the remaining kids into the bloody fiasco anyway.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: The college kids are right at that age and education level where they think they know everything. Chad notably makes several postulates that would be accurate if he were in any other horror movie. Allison tries to use her psychology classes to defuse the animosity between Chad and Dale, but has no idea how to deal with Chad's deep-seated trauma. Naomi, seeing Allison trying to convince them that Tucker and Dale aren't evil, immediately assumes Allison has Stockholm Syndrome, having heard about it in her sociology class.
- Too Dumb to Live: While it's expected that college students often make poor decisions in horror films, this crew takes ineptness to a whole new level, with the exception of Allison (who knows everything because she is with Tucker and Dale), Mitch (who at least had the relative dignity to die fleeing from a man running toward him with a chainsaw, having no way of knowing the man was fleeing from a swarm of wasps) and Chloe (while generally a Dumb Blonde, her death was caused by her being overwhelmed with shock and not getting out of the exploding cabin in time).
- What the Hell, Hero?: Jason, Naomi and Chloe get pretty fed up with Chad's Ax-Crazy tendencies and reluctance to get the police involved by the final act of the movie, and also seem horrified by his decision to cut off some of Tucker's fingers.
Allison
Played by: Katrina Bowden
A college girl studying psychology who accidentally hits her head while skinny dipping and befriends Dale after he rescues her.
- Dumb Blonde: Unusually averted for a horror film. Allison is the smartest and most level-headed member of her group.
- Farm Girl: She grew up on a farm, which explains why she gets along with Dale so well. She even offers to help him dig an outhouse.
- Final Girl: Since all the college kids who tried to kill Tucker and Dale end up dead, Allison is the only woman to survive.
- Hidden Depths: She grew up on a farm and is thus no stranger to menial labor like digging a hole for an outhouse, much to Dale's pleasant surprise. She's also studying for her degree in psychology and genuinely wants to help people communicate better.
- Ms. Fanservice: A beautiful young blonde who bares her midriff a good portion of the movie and strips down to her underwear to go skinny dipping.
- Nice Girl: She's a kind young woman who wants to become a therapist and help people. She also fully admits she was wrong to judge Dale and Tucker by their appearance, and tries to tell her friends that the two of them are actually nice guys and that she's not in any danger by being with them.
- Tap on the Head: She gets knocked out with such frightening regularity that Dale gifts her a pink helmet during their date.
Chad
Played by: Jesse Moss
The college kid who designates himself as the leader of the group once they believe they're being hunted by psychopathic hillbillies.
- A Real Man Is a Killer: He's obviously thrilled at the idea of having a chance to kill (while maintaining a semblance of moral high ground), and tries to bring the others along with his way of thinking. He's rather upset when they try to do the smart thing and call the cops, robbing him of his opportunity.
- Ax-Crazy: He was already an arrogant, bloodthirsty prick, but after Allison chooses Dale over him and he discovers he's the son of the Memorial Day Killer, he becomes completely unhinged and sadistic.
- Big Bad: The leader of the college kids who wants to kill Tucker and Dale under the mistaken belief that they kidnapped Allison.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Chad dissects the "alpha male" hero of a horror movie. His "bravery" and desire to take on "the bad guys" is in reality horrible arrogance and paranoia, and causes a somewhat troubling situation to become catastrophically bad for both the hillbillies and his friends. His refusal to disobey his instincts eventually make him into the evil horror movie villain he claimed to oppose.
- Determinator: Nothing will stop him from killing the hillbillies. Not even the deaths of his friends.
- Entitled to Have You: He has this attitude towards Allison at the beginning of the film, attempting to come onto her and becoming angry when she rebuffs him. When she sides with Tucker and Dale due to Chad's increasing depravity, he tries to kill her for "betraying" him.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He treats Allison's peace mediation as something he has to put up with, and doesn't even bother hiding the fact that he is still dead set on killing Tucker and Dale.
- Freudian Excuse: His hatred for hillbillies stems from the fact that, as a child, he learned that his father was killed in a massacre orchestrated by two hillbillies when he was camping with his friends and Chad's mom. During the climax his hatred is made ten times worse when he learns that the hillbilly who killed the man he thought was his father also raped his mother, causing his conception.
- Hate Sink: His every action works to earn the audience's ire. While the movie is a comedy, Chad is a legitimately repulsive human being, and the movie takes this fact seriously.
- Irony: He's asthmatic, something that's usually associated with stereotypical unathletic, shy, and socially submissive nerd/geek characters- things that are the exact opposite of his general character archetype.
- Irrational Hatred: Freudian Excuse or not, his hate of hillbillies is completely out of control. At one point he even tells said excuse to Dale and Dale points out that he was six at the time and had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to his family, which does nothing to convince Chad to stop trying to kill him.
- Jerkass: A prejudiced, entitled prick.
- Made of Iron: He can take an absurd amount of physical harm, as any good slasher villain should.
- Manipulative Bastard: Takes advantage of Allison's kidnapping and uses his friends' stupidity to advance his goals of murdering Tucker and Dale.
- Meaningful Name: "Chad" is stereotypically associated with douchey, entitled frat-bro types. Needless to say, he upholds his name's reputation to a T.
- No Sympathy: Towards his friends when they get freaked out by all the deaths and don't want to keep going at Tucker and Dale by themselves. He flat-out tells Chloe that he thinks she deserves to die for being afraid.
- Red Right Hand: The left side of his face is horrifically burned to Two-Faced quality in the climax.
- Sanity Slippage: He wasn't particularly sane to begin with but by the end of the film, Chad's had half his face burned off, been rejected by Allison in favor of Dale, and discovered that he's the son of the killer hillbilly that he thought murdered his father. All this pushes him further over the brink until he finally becomes the deranged backwoods killer that he so despised.
- The Social Darwinist: As a true believer in "action for action's sake", he insists on ending the conflict with Tucker and Dale with violence and actively discourages the rest of the group from considering other solutions or even taking more time to assess the situation. Anyone who doesn't follow him without question might as well die themselves.
- Strong Family Resemblance: How Allison and Dale put together who Chad's real biological father is. The hillbilly who raped Chad's mother just so happens to look a lot like him.
- Tragic Bigot: Albeit not a sympathetic one. Chad's murderous hatred of all hillbillies stems from the fact that a group of them killed his father. But it turns out he's "part hillbilly" when Dale discovers an old newspaper clipping and realizes that the hillbilly who killed his father also raped his mother, which resulted in his conception. He doesn't take it well.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Asthmatic and allergic to chamomile, which Dale uses to his advantage.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: He believes that he is the hero of a straight hillbilly horror film.
Chuck
Played by: Travis Nelson
- Character Death: Accidentally shoots himself in the head while trying to undo the safety of his gun.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Shoots himself in the head because he looks down the barrel of a revolver with his finger on the trigger while trying to undo the safety.
Mike
Played by: Joseph Allan Sutherland
- Character Death: Screws up his flying tackle on Tucker and lands headfirst in a wood chipper.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Rare non-bisection example. When the wood chipper jams, only his legs remain.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: Once they arrive at their campsite, Mike immediately suggests they go skinny-dipping.
Jason
Played by: Brandon Jay McLaren
- Ambiguously Gay: Asks if having a recurring dream about sucking a dick but not having actually done it in real life is gay. All his friends immediately say yes.
- Character Death: Is accidentally hit by an oil lamp thrown by Chad. Initially, just his leg catches on fire, but then Chloe makes it worse by dousing him with the first liquid she could grab, which happened to be some highly flammable paint thinner the hillbillies saved for later use, sending him into a full-body fire.
- Lovable Coward: Cowers for the majority of the film until he attempts a rescue of his friends at the climax.
- Token Minority: He's the only black man in the movie.
Chloe
Played by: Chelan Simmons
- Blood-Splattered Innocents: She gets a faceful of blood twice, first when Mike accidentally chucks himself into the wood chipper, second when Naomi takes a weed whacker to the face.
- Character Death: Overwhelmed by the deaths of Naomi and Jason, she goes into shock and fails to flee from the burning cabin before it explodes.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: She smokes when she's especially nervous. After her actions directly resulted in Jason's death, rather than try to escape the burning cabin, she goes into shock, sits down and lights up one last time.
- Dumb Blonde: Acts entitled like the rest of her party, but seems to have less common sense.
- Fanservice: Can be seen distantly as topless during the skinny dipping scene and wears a revealing outfit throughout the movie.
- High Heel Hurt: For some reason, Chloe felt the best type of shoes to wear into a forest are platform heels. She quickly learns otherwise.
- Pink Means Feminine: She wears a pink blouse.
Naomi
Played by: Christie Laing
- Character Death: Accidentally hit in the face with a Weedwhacker wielded by Jason unsuccessfully trying to pull off a Big Damn Heroes moment. This leaves her so wounded that she's unable to escape the cabin before it explodes.
- Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Her outfit.
- Token Minority: Along with Jason. She's the only black woman in the movie.
Todd
Played by: Alex Arsenault
- Character Death: Accidentally impales himself on his homemade spear after he charges at Dale and trips over his own feet.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The second character to die in this fashion.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: The second to die.
Mitch
Played by: Adam Beauchesne
- Character Death: Accidentally impales himself on a tree branch when Tucker frightens him.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Meets his end after being skewered on a tree branch.
- "Eureka!" Moment: In the moments before his death, he notices a hornet that lands on his nose, and he's able to piece together that Tucker was panicking from being swarmed by them and wasn't trying to kill him. He unfortunately dies before he can pass this knowledge along to his friends.
- Only Sane Man: He at least tries to argue that Tucker and Dale aren't murderous hillbillies and find reasonable explanations for everything going on. Unfortunately, he loses this when Tucker starts running towards him while revving a chainsaw and screaming at the top of his lungs.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: The first to die of the group.
Others
The Sheriff
Played by: Philip Granger
- Character Death: Accidentally gets himself impaled in the head after he leans on a loose support beam.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He gives both Dale and Tucker a fair chance to explain their side of the story, even if he expresses skepticism about the numerous deaths on their property, and points out that they probably will not be believed by any jury.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Calls out both Dale and Tucker for not heeding his warning about going into the woods.
