Elvis and JFK are living in a retirement home in LA when an ancient Egyptian monster named Bubba Ho-Tep starts sucking the souls of the residents.
"The best movie to star both the King and JFK."
4 stars
OK. If you can't get past the next sentence, don't even *think* about getting this movie - or, for that matter, reading the rest of this review.
Elvis is alive and elderly in a Texas convalescent home and goes up against a resurrected soul-sucking mummy to save the lives of the residents around him.
Now, if you've managed to bear with me thus far, I'm going to guess that you just might be a fan of Bruce Campbell. You know, the "Army of Darkness" guy. Even if you're not, you might have the taste for the absurd, and the darkly comic, that's required to enjoy "Bubba Ho-Tep."
Campbell plays Elvis, who, in facility, has been identified as an Elvis impersonator. But, you see, Elvis at one point became tired of all the fame, the drugs, and the hangers-on, and switched identities with an Elvis impersonator. It actually was the impersonator who died, not the real King, who is incapacitated after he broke his hip during a show.
Campbell narrates this bizarre, strangely funny tale quite seriously, almost as though he's delivering the monologue for a straightforward documentary. He makes references to his daughter, to his wife, and to the regrets he has about his family.
When the residents in the home begin to die, Elvis suspects that something sinister is happening involving huge flying beetles. He teams up with another resident, Jack Kennedy (yep, one and the same) played by Ossie Davis, who says that he was dyed after his fake assassination. It's Jack who figures out what may be going on, and Elvis who begins to piece together how this dreadful supernatural event occurred.
Davis and Campbell play their roles straight - they earn laughs because they're so serious about their characters.
Don Coscarelli, who directed the "Phantasm" flicks, wrote and directed this high-camp story that certainly won't appeal to mainstream audiences.
I don't know how to categorize this movie, because it's not a full-blown comedy, although it certainly offers humour. It isn't a real horror movie, either, although it contains horror elements. And it certainly isn't a murder mystery, although that's part of the concoction too.
Maybe it doesn't need to have a genre. If you've read this far, you'll know whether this is the sort of picture that appeals to you.
Thank you. Thank you very much!
Running time: Ninety-two minutes.
Rated: R for foul language, sexual situations and violence.
Stars: Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis, Ella Joyce, Reggie Bannister, Bob Ivy, Larry Pennell and Heidi Marnhout.
Screenwriter and director: Don Coscarelli, based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale.
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Low budget cult comedy starring Bruce Campbell and directed by Don Coscarelli. In a Mud Creek retirement home, an aged Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and a black man who thinks he's JFK (Ossie Davis) have to join forces to stop a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy from sucking the souls out of the retirement home's other residents.
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