Review: Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

Bubba Ho-Tep (2003)

Rated R for language, some sexual content and brief violent images

Score: 3 out of 5

At first glance, Bubba Ho-Tep seems like exactly the sort of movie you'd expect Bruce Campbell to star in: a B-grade horror-comedy about Elvis and JFK doing battle with an ancient Egyptian mummy at a nursing home. However, while it does have horror and comedy in it, what it actually is at its core is a character-driven drama about growing old and how we treat the elderly. Had this film worked out its pacing problems and succeeded more when it came to its horror side, I might have given it my unqualified recommendation. As it stands, however, this is a flawed gem, one that never quite gets over its biggest problems but remains eminently likable throughout, thanks in no small part to an outstanding lead performance by Bruce Campbell.

The basic setup here is that Elvis lives, baby. Specifically, back in the '70s Elvis Presley, getting burned out by fame, decided to trade places with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff, settling down to live a less hectic life while the impostor got to live his dream. Unfortunately, while the job came with the stipulation that the real Elvis would be free to return to his old gig at any point, Sebastian wound up dying, and not only did Elvis lose his copy of the contract in a fire, leaving him with no way of proving that he wasn't Sebastian, but a bad fall off a stage forced him to retire from Sebastian's career as an Elvis impersonator. Now, he's in his sixties, stuck living in a nursing home in East Texas with a bad hip and assumed to be a doddering, senile old fart who got too deep into his gig as an Elvis impersonator, wondering just where the hell his life went. He doesn't have time to wallow, though, as a mummy is stalking the halls, sucking out and consuming the souls of the home's elderly residents. Together with Jack, a man who believes that he is John F. Kennedy and is obsessed with figuring out who faked his assassination and dumped him at the Shady Rest Retirement Home (and colored his skin black in the process, the perfect way to make sure nobody believes him), Elvis sets out to save his soul from getting eaten.

It is a frankly ridiculous premise for a movie, yet this movie plays it completely straight -- and that is, oddly enough, its greatest strength. To be sure, there is a strong dose of comedy here, as is to be expected from any movie that Bruce Campbell stars in. The aging King spends much of the film complaining about the strange growth on his penis and all the other little things that plague life at his age. His battle with the scarab that signals the mummy's arrival calls to mind Ash's fight against his possessed hand in Evil Dead II, with Campbell's reaction being less one of fear and more one of annoyance at what he thinks is a really big, ugly cockroach. On the other hand, the fact that the comedy is here to liven things up is probably the only thing keeping this film from becoming soul-crushingly depressing. An early scene has Elvis' roommate dying and his daughter coming to retrieve his stuff, during which time we see how little she thought about him; the fact that she never visited after dropping her father off at the nursing home three years ago is the least of it. Another of his fellow residents has slid into dementia and thinks he's the Lone Ranger, culminating in a bit that's simultaneously amusing and bleak when he tries to take down the mummy. Elvis himself, played by Campbell with great old-age makeup and an excellent imitation of his famous accent, believes that he pissed away everything he'd built for himself, failing to appreciate just how good he had it as the original rock star, and so he now stews in bitterness. Only when he's reminded of his acting work, the lowest point of his career, does he finally learn to get over himself and take the fight to the monster stalking the home, because after all, it's not like he was always so amazing as a young man either. In this film, the elderly residents of the nursing home are treated as disposable burdens who the rest of society has shuffled out of the way so that they can die without causing a fuss. It's a perfect target for a horror movie monster; nobody would miss the residents, who are expected to die soon anyway.

Said monster, unfortunately, is where the film stumbles. There were things about the mummy that worked, to be fair. It has a killer design done with great practical effects, and while I didn't get why it was also wearing a tattered rhinestone-cowboy costume (it may have been to symbolize Elvis' glamorous past and what he's turned into since, but that idea was never really elaborated upon in the film itself), it still looked cool and menacing in practice. Plus, a mummy, a creature thousands of years old, is a perfect monster for a movie about old folks getting killed. Unfortunately, the scares were hit-or-miss. It worked best when it was slowly building dread, such as a great scene where the mummy is walking down a hallway towards Elvis, slow but seeming like nothing in the world can stop him. When he was actually attacking people, though, it wasn't anywhere near as scary, something that is most pronounced in the final fight with Elvis and Jack against the mummy, which just felt limp most of the time with only a few cool and funny moments to liven it up. Speaking of Jack, he was the other big problem I had. Despite a very capable performance by Ossie Davis, his character is mostly a one-note joke about a crazy person who thinks he's John F. Kennedy, coming up with conspiracy theories about his own assassination. It was amusing at first, and probably could have sustained a funny short film, but he never gets much development beyond that, with Davis' performance really elevating the character more than anything else. It was here where the wackiness of this film's premise came through the most, and it was not for the better.

The Bottom Line

Overall, while I enjoyed this film, it was one that I appreciated more than I really liked. Its mix of great comedy beats and a surprisingly thoughtful story about how society treats the elderly help make up for an uneven experience as a horror film. This is very much a cult item, but if you're looking for a scary movie that's a lot smarter than it looks at first glance, give this one a shot.