Most recently watched by sensoria, sleestakk, krazykat, noahphex, jenerator
Bubba Ho-tep tells the “true” story of what really did become of Elvis Presley. We find Elvis as an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home, who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his “death,” then missed his chance to switch back. He must team up with JFK and fight an ancient Egyptian mummy for the souls of their fellow residents.
Rated R | Length 92 minutes
Bruce Campbell | Ossie Davis | Ella Joyce | Heidi Marnhout | Bob Ivy | Edith Jefferson | Larry Pennell | Reggie Bannister | Daniel Roebuck | Daniel Schweiger | Harrison Young | Linda Flammer | Cean Okada | Solange Morand | Karen Placencia | Bruce Rawitz | Joseph Primero | Chuck Williams | Timothy E. Goodwin | James Maley | Blaine Tyler | Steve Kassel | Damon Carruesco | Lief Frederick | Danny Crossen | Gigi Bannister | Emily Wengel | Naveed Mahboobian | Omid Naimi | Joseph C. Boulder | Virginia Brown | Celia Gill | Harvey Flammer | Sylvia Flammer | Ruth Hansen | Mary Rose Waken | Natasha Kurtz | Avery Taylor | Nadia Angelini
Date Viewed | Device | Format | Source | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
08/20/2007 | TV | DVD | Owned | 5 stars |
(Average) 5 stars |
This originally appeared as a DVD review for PopSyndicate.com in 2007.
Never, but never f*ck with the king
Elvis is still alive. Or at least, millions upon millions of people are keeping him alive forty years after he died in the most embarrassing of ways, next to going out Michael Hutchins-style. People are so fascinated with him that he has sung his way to an almost mythological status, and as late as the 1980s the Art Bells of the world claimed they had spotted him here, there and everywhere, but they never saw him in a nursing home.
In Bubba Ho-tep, Elvis isn’t hanging out with aliens, he’s not working at a bookstore and he’s damn sure not pumping at some gas station. He’s shacked up and feeling sorry for himself at the Shady Rest Convalescent Home in Mud Creek, Texas. Oh, and he’s there with former president John F. Kennedy, who was forced to have plastic surgery to look like a black man after he was shot in 1963. And a man who may or may not be Clayton Moore, aka the Lone Ranger. Then again, Elvis may actually just be Sebastian Haff, an Elvis impersonator with an identity problem and JFK is just a crazy old man. Regardless, thirty-plus years after his supposed death, Elvis is at the end of the road and desperately searching for meaning in his life when it arrives in the form of Ho-tep, an Egyptian pharoah, dressed like a cowboy, who has risen from the dead like Eric Roberts’ career and is taking out the Shady Creek residents one at a time. There are only two supposedly-dead senior citizens in the world that can stop him.
The effects in Bubba are as shaky as Elvis’ hips, most noticeably when Ho-tep’s scarab is moving and attacking, and Bruce Campbell’s aged Elvis make-up alternates between top notch and looking like he’s got an alien fungus growing on his face depending on lighting. But, with a budget of $500,000, I’ll take it in exchange for Joe Lansdale and Don Cascarelli’s script and actors like Campbell playing the role subtly, instead of like some two-bit Road to Graceland impersonator. The film is witty and creative and instantly likeable, although it treads close to the B-movie border. I only wish the majestic actor Ossie Davis had played JFK with a more appropriate New England accent.
Since it is the Hail to the King edition, there are a plethora of features packed into a gorgeous cases. The most unusual extra is a reading of the original Bubba Ho-tep short story by its original writer Joe Lansdale. If you thought the movie was vulgar, just listen to the story which is cut with still images given over to an oil painting filter in Adobe Photoshop. Requisite special features like deleted scenes and trailers wrap up the set. Bloopers would have been appreicated, but that’s about the only thing left out. There are four featurettes totaling about an hour’s worth of material that all deal in some way with the making of the film. There’s not much to the deleted scenes, as there are only two, but they do have commentary. There’s also an extended version of the temple scene where the Ho-Tep was created. Lastly there are two commentaries. The first is one that was included on the first version of the DVD with director Don Cascarelli. The second is a bit of an odd duck, as it’s Bruce Campbell as Elvis doing a commentary about the film that is about him; it’s very meta. It’s funny at first but it’s way too long because there is no one there for him to play off of. You can call it a special feature or an extra or whatever, but the best thing about the DVD is it’s new packaging: a little white Elvis jumpsuit complete with studs, a la the Grease Rockin’ Rydell T-Birds edition.
Bubba Ho-tep is one of the movies that has surprised me the most in recent years and this glorious fat little package warms my heart. Elvis will get all shook up again in Bubba Nosferatu and the Curse of the She-Vampires in 2008. Next time, I want to see John Lennon staking vampires.
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