Hello again, moviegoers!
Continuing my Bruce Campbell theme, I'll be looking at probably my favorite of his horror- comedies, 'Bubba Ho- Tep.' Made in 2002, it was directed by Don Coscarelli and stars Bruce Campbell as "Elvis Presley" (Read on to learn more about that).
Our story takes place in a massively run- down and depressing- looking East Texas nursing home. As said, Campbell plays the main character, Elvis Presley himself, who apparently was still alive all these years. The explanation given was that Elvis had basically grown tired of fame, so he switched identities with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff, so it was actually Haff who died on the toilet while the real Elvis comfortably faded into obscurity impersonating himself. Now, however, he's stuck in this rathole of a nursing home, wondering how he could have gone from the king of rock 'n roll to his current miserable state. One of the few friends he has in the nursing home is a man who claims to be John F. Kennedy (Played by the late Ossie Davis). While the account "Elvis" gives of how he's still alive isn't too farfetched and could possibly be the truth, you definitely get the feeling that "JFK" is just a crazy old man (i.e. He claims it's all a ginormous conspiracy; When it's pointed out that he is black and President Kennedy was a white man, he responds, "That's how clever they are! They dyed me this color!").
Things start to get interesting when we learn that an ancient, cursed Egyptian mummy was stolen from a nearby museum by a couple guys with a stolen bus. A storm kicks up, causing the bus to go into a river near the nursing home, and the mummy eventually manages to come back to life and escape from the river, now clad in a cowboy hat and matching boots. It heads to the nursing home each night, and begins sustaining itself by sucking the souls from the elderly residents there (I'd rather not mention HOW the mummy does this, as it's not pleasant), killing them instantly. Elvis and Jack eventually discover together what's happening, and realize that they're the only ones who can stop the mummy (Which Elvis at one point nicknames "Bubba Ho- Tep," due to the cowboy duds it wears) and thus save all their friends.
There aren't many real problems with this movie. One that I had was that they could have revealed more of the mummy's backstory. Elvis at one point reads a bit of the mummy's mind (Long story), causing us to see through a brief flashback that in life, he was a rather prominent Egyptian citizen (Possibly the relative of a pharaoh) who for some reason was mummified alive and cursed; However, unlike Boris Karloff's Imhotep in 'The Mummy,' we never learn why this particular ancient Egyptian received that treatment. If the flashback scene were a bit longer, it could have revealed that. Also, we only really meet a couple of the other nursing home residents besides Elvis and Jack, and even then only briefly (Though I suppose that's somewhat understandable; Since most of the other people there clearly think Elvis and Jack are both nuts, it makes sense they wouldn't be terribly popular); Letting us get to know a couple more of them would help better drive home the urgency of the situation. A final minor issue they had was that there's a bit of a running joke centering around the fact that Elvis has an infected, possibly- cancerous growth on a certain part of his anatomy (Fortunately, it's never seen; That fact made Bruce Campbell feel much easier about accepting the role). It gets somewhat tiresome after a while.
Alright now, there's plenty to like about 'Bubba Ho- Tep.' First, there's how unique it is (And not just the fact that the heroes are apparently celebrities who are supposed to be dead). So many horor movies today involve characters no older than 30 or so, seeing a horror film in which the heroes are elderly is quite refreshing. Speaking of which, the film does a good job of pointing out/ criticizing the attitude that so much of our society has toward the elderly, the way our culture views them as just unnecessary burdens dumped into nursing homes to die alone and forgotten. The film perfectly fits the definition of a horror- comedy, as it has both scary moments (Particularly the way that, when the mummy is walking towards someone, all the lights near it either go out or burst, as if they cannot tolerate its evil presence), and incredibly funny moments (i.e. Many of Elvis's narrative monologues are hilarious).
The mummy itself looks great, a brown rotted corpse in a cowboy hat and boots, with a slow walk and a few mystical powers (i.e. it phases itself through a locked door in one scene and teleports in another scene, as well as its aforementioned soul- sucking). Unlike mummies in other films, this mummy is largely silent; It only says two lines, growled out in ancient Egyptian (With amusing subtitles popping up). There's not much to say about set designs, as most of it takes place in the nursing home, which looks suitably dull and run- down, probably with a whole laundry list of health/ safety- code violations. I'd imagine that when elderly people are afraid that their kids might have them put in a nursing home, they envision it as being a lot like this one.
The music is an interesting subject. It is mostly very well- done, taking generally the same melody but styling it several different ways, depending on what the mood is for each scene it's used in. The music was all written and performed by Brian Tyler, doing every instrument. First he'd record himself playing the drums, then he'd record himself playing the guitar, and so on, and finally splice all the recordings together so it sounds like a full band doing it, and it sounds great.
Last but not least, there's the performances. Campbell is magnificent as Elvis. He pulls off the accent perfectly, and goes on a full range of emotions throughout the movie. He starts out bitter and disgusted with himself, then obviously frightened when he learns that the mummy is real, and finally brave and stoic as he realizes the time has come for him to confront the mummy and be the hero so many people viewed him as in his prime. He is also, as usual, funny as hell, with one great line after another. Ossie Davis turns in a good performance as "JFK." Even though, as I said, you get the feeling that he's probably just a crazy old man, he still comes across as quite intelligent on a variety of topics, and is a very likable character with his own amounts of funny lines. A worthwhile supporting performance comes from Ella Joyce as Elvis's frustrated nurse, who comes across as a woman who has clearly put up with Elvis's rather rude behavior and the various other unpleasant duties of her job for a very long time and become grudgingly accepting of them if only for the sake of humoring him.
So, there you have 'Bubba Ho- Tep.' A great movie, and a very effective way to introduce new people to Campbell's horror- comedy films. I've got one more Campbell film to do tomorrow that I kow of, and then it'll be on to the next theme. See you then!
