REVIEWED - BUBBA HO-TEP: This singular film did sufficiently poorly at the US box-office on its release in 2002 to qualify for cult status. Mind you, any film in which a superannuated Elvis joins forces with a similarly decrepit John F. Kennedy to take on a soul-eating mummy is probably destined to be so described.
Sadly, Bubba Ho-Tep is, despite a decent script and superb performances, only about 60 percent as entertaining as it sounds. That is certainly enough to be going on with, but it is hard to avoid the suspicion that there is a classic bursting to get out of this modest diversion.
Directed by Don Coscarelli, the man behind 1979's nicely revolting Phantasm, Bubba Ho-Tep introduces us to a heavily quiffed malcontent, played with grace and flair by Sam Raimi's favourite actor Bruce Campbell, with a fantastic story to tell the other residents of his Texas old people's home. They believe him to be an Elvis impersonator, but he insists that he is the real thing and that he and the ersatz King swapped places years back so that he could get some privacy.
His is not the only tall tale; one of the old codger's best friends, the puzzlingly black Ossie Davis, is convinced he is JFK and that he has been dyed the colour he is now is by the cabal that organised his shooting. When a shabby figure in bandages begins annihilating the home's residents, Jack and Elvis decide to fight back.
Campbell chews through Elvis's profane rages against the dying of the light (taken from the respected crime novelist Joe Lansdale's similarly titled story) with great dignity, and the picture is at its best when dealing with the injustices that accompany old age. It is quite possible that the two heroes may be as demented as everybody believes and, if so, they deserve a little more kindness and a little less, ahem, aggravation.
But the film's last act, in which the boys face-up to the titular demon, is neither properly horrific nor satisfactorily funny. Having been gifted the most extraordinary set-up, Coscarelli seems to have no idea what to do with it.
Still, you don't get a chance to see something this peculiar every day; so, see it you probably should.
