BUBBA HO-TEP is a surprisingly touching film considering the subject matter, viz. to wit, an aging Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) as a resident of a rundown East Texas nursing home battling an ancient Egyptian mummy given to wearing cowboy boots. That he is aided in this battle by a fellow resident who claims to be JFK with an all-over dye job, hence being played by Ossie Davis, only adds to the piquancy of the situation. It’s also a comedy. How could it not be? But the humor is infused with all the weltschmerz of a film noir.
Elvis, it seems, having had enough of fame and fortune, decided to change places with the best Elvis impersonator he could find, one Sebastian Haff. Unfortunately, Haff had a bad heart and Elvis lost all the proof about the switch in an unfortunate barbecue incident. So he spends his days nursing a bad hip while waxing philosophical about his past and that suspicious pustule nestled in an unfortunate spot. Odd things begin to happen, though. Scarab beetles the size of peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches are attacking the residents and the condescending staff take it just about as seriously as they do Elvis’ claims to fame. Fortunately, JFK, who is there undercover with a bag of sand where his brain was blown away in Dallas, believes, especially after he discovers hieroglyphic graffiti in the visitors’ bathroom after being attacked by something that was trying to mess with one of his orifices. A very private one. It seems our mummy, dubbed Bubba Ho-Tep by Elvis, is a soul sucker and the film diverts from the action long enough for our heroes to engage in an illuminating metaphysical discussion about the nature of soul digestion that would lead our mummy to need use of the facilities.
Campbell, decked out in a fat suit and impressive pompadour, doesn’t wield chainsaws here as he did in EVIL DEAD or ARMY OF DARKNESS, but he does have that same parody of bravado brandishing a bedpan as Elvis goes ju-jitsu on the killer scarabs. He and Davis play the bizarre tale with absolute sincerity, like Davis looks Campbell in the eye and with a seriousness that makes a funeral look like a cotillion, asks him to swear that he never met Jack Ruby or Lee Harvey Oswald. There is something touching about these aging warriors staging a last-stand sort of heroism, an aging pair battling hopeless odds with a hopeful mix of makeshift weapons, JFK in a wheelchair, Elvis sporting a metal-studded jumpsuit, its brave little cape fluttering gently as he shuffles along with his walker.
Director Don Coscarelli, who also wrote the screenplay based on Joe R. Lansdale’s short story, plays it absolutely straight, with a film vocabulary derived from melodrama and only a pair of undertakers providing slapstick type of comic relief. He’s smart enough to know that when an audience is given this level of weirdness, it needs no other embellishment.
There’s also a tantalizing, overreaching mystery to the identities of our heroes. While one of their pals thinks he’s the Lone Ranger, it’s obvious that, Kemosabe being a fictional character, he’s not. As for JFK, who favors tweedy jackets over his pajamas, why is it that in this seedy establishment, his room is done in pricey hardwood furniture and elaborate plaster moldings?
Despite Campbell’s Elvis voice fading from time to time, BUBBA HO-TEP is a smart comedy that dares to take on the sublime and the ridiculous, succeeding on both counts with equal aplomb. Whether musing on the nature of fame, contemplating the limpness of age, or facing absurdity with a deadpan conviction, it’s a true original.
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