Macabre…ish Horror Review: Bubba Ho-Tep

 

Bubba Ho-tep, 2002/ 1 hr 32 min

 

In a retirement facility called Shady Rest in Mud Creek, Tx is an elderly Elvis impersonator aka Sebastian Haff (Bruce Campbell) but he insists he is the real Elvis.

 

He claims he was miserable and left everything behind, he went on a road trip to Nagcogdoches and there he met Sebastian at a motel, he signed everything over to him and they traded lives. He built a new life from there. The contract he had with Haff burned up in a fire that said they can trade back if he ever wants too.

 

One day he went on the road as an Elvis impersonator but then he fell and broke his hip on stage. That was 20 years ago. That’s his story anyway.

 

He shares his room with a dying man named, Bull (Harrison Young). He also has a friend, Jack (Ossie Davis), who thinks he’s JFK dyed brown.

 

Another resident is bitten by a scarab and sees a corpse in her room, who later drags her away. Elvis sees it but dismisses it as another crazy dream.

 

One night, Elvis also has scarab in his room and defends himself with a bed pan, a two pronged fork and heater. He goes to check on his friend, Jack who appears to have been bitten by a scarab.

 

The next night, Jack wakes Elvis up because he hears foot steps, they have a strange barely lucid conversation about conspiracies but then they take off to investigate. They start with hieroglyphics written on a bathroom stall. Jack insists the person who put it there is the same one who tried to suck his soul out of his butt the night before.

 

Some further research tells them that the creature doing this needs to suck souls to continue to exist. It’s using this home full of geriatrics to get those souls. And it comes back night after night and is preceded by scarabs. A walking (sometimes ghostlike) dehydrated corpse wearing a hat, boots and remnants of tattered clothes. An unwrapped mummy. Bubba Ho-tep. (Bob Ivy).

 

And everyday, admin (Reggie Bannister) calls the funeral home to pick up the remains of residents.

 

Jack, with his niece, found more info about the mummy. A sarcophagus was stolen and held for ransom but that same day a storm blew in when all of this began. So Elvis and Jack hatch a plan. They each suit up in their best and go to battle.

 

 

This comedy horror was directed by Don Coscarelli. It’s a small but good cast. The monster and bug effects are good. This isn’t a gory or bloody movie, the most graphic part about it is the mummy. The humor is generally crass but the story is solid and the narration is good. It felt a little long but there is only so much that can be done within these parameters. Also on the cast is Ella Joyce and Daniel Roebuck. I enjoyed