Bubba Ho-Tep
When a second-rate, parasitic mummy comes to The Shady Rest Retirement Home to suck the souls out of the elderly, only two of the 20th century's most iconic personalities--Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis)--can put a stop to it. Bubba Ho-Tep is a horror comedy about Elvis--who switched places with an impersonator named Sebastian Haff prior to his presumed death--and his introspective stay in a Texas assisted living community that he has called home for the past two decades. After the mummy--dubbed "Bubba Ho-tep" by Elvis, and played by Bob Ivy--begins his midnight feedings, Elvis steels himself to face this terror and shakes off his self-pity.
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Bubba Ho-Tep was written and directed by Don Coscarelli, and shares thematic and tonal similarities with his other movies, like Phantasm and John Dies at the End. Moments in Bubba Ho-Tep are deliberately nonsensical, and play out like a fevered dream. First and foremost is the presence of both Elvis and JFK in this obscure retirement home, and the convoluted and unlikely circumstances that brought them there--including why the 35th President of the United States is now black. Bubba Ho-Tep teases that these two vanguards against the undead menace wreaking havoc in their home are suffering from delusions about their identity, but favors a healthy suspension of disbelief instead. Because the villain is an actual supernatural being, the audience is forced to consider which is more implausible--that Elvis and JFK didn't really die, or that something that was actually dead has risen from his sarcophagus? Many of Coscarelli's films depict a madhouse interpretation of reality, deliberately reminiscent of a dream or a nightmare. Elvis sees flashes of his life flicker by as he is stretched out supine on his hospital bed. The mummy shuffles through the halls not in ancient Egyptian raiments, but in a cowboy outfit; and when he does so, all the the lights flicker or explode, as an aura of light radiates out from behind him. When the mummy first passes by Elvis, a connection between them causes him to see the moments of Bubba Ho-tep's death, the embalming of his organs in canopic jars, and the bus crash that resulted in his body being thrown into the "crick", which freed him to roam the earth once more. A scarab-like critter that serves Bubba Ho-tep attacks the elderly residents in advance of the mummy, and looks as though it were animated with a stop motion technique, giving it an unnerving and surreal quality. The encounter between the beetle and Elvis is a mix of skin-crawling creepiness and slapstick, as the "King of Rock and Roll" utilizes everything from a bedpan to a personal space heater to put the bug down for good. This vein of dark comedy continues through Bubba Ho-Tep. Consider how the film opens with a black-and-white news reel depicting the raiding of the pharoahs' tombs, with mummies carted out of the pyramids on stretchers; this becomes a running gag when a pair of orderlies repeatedly cart out the mummy's victims in the same fashion.
Bubba Ho-Tep explores the nature of mortality and the treatment of the elderly, even if it is in its absurd own way. The mummy doesn't say much; when it does, it's through crass taunts in hieroglyphics. Bubba Ho-tep comes across as a real punk...a lower-tier haunt which JFK refers to as the "brother" of a better known pharaoh. This egomaniacal corpse uses his resentment of the living to justify his exploitation of the elderly, sucking out the souls of the aged in a humiliating fashion. Bubba Ho-tep is symbolic of the feelings of helplessness and embarrassment that comes with age--being at the mercy of bodily functions but being deprived of the physical strength to address them without aid. The mummy is also a surrogate for the amoral and unethical scumbags that prosper from elder abuse. Death is a constant motif in Bubba Ho-Tep, but the mummy is a perversion of that natural order--not only because he is undead, but in the way he ends lives prematurely. He collects the souls of his victims so that they have no chance to experience the afterlife, reincarnation, or whatever lies beyond that undiscovered country, and the film implies that these souls are digested and excreted by this wretched defiler. Elvis contemplates how he wishes he could see his daughter or ex-wife again, while he bemoans a growth on his genitals and his impotence. He is reminded of the latter when his late roommate's attractive daughter, Callie (Heidi Marnhout), comes to toss out her father's goods, including a Purple Heart which Elvis saves, and later when his nurse (Ella Joyce) administers an unguent on his privates ostensibly to ensure no infection spreads. Elvis's "impotence" is biological and existential, and the emergence of Bubba Ho-tep removes both of these hurdles; he once again feels "alive" and that he has something meaningful to live for. His crisis of self goes all the way back to when he felt that he couldn't go on as "Elvis" any longer, and had to retreat into an alias to feel alive. He comments that even though he portrayed virile icons of masculinity in his movies and on stage, he began running from the hard choices in his life rather than run the risk of failure. Jack Kennedy tells Elvis that in his research into the "Book of Souls" (yes, really), he discovered that mummies like this one cannot be satisfied with "small souls" for long. The implication is that these smaller souls come from those who are already dying or old, although they speculate that the mummy still goes after these because they are easier pickings for him. Elvis and Jack's souls become "too big" for him to down as easily because they stand up to him, which in turn gives them a fighting chance. This is intimated when another resident of the home--dressed like The Lone Ranger, and called "Kemosabe" (Larry Pennell)--fires off fake pistols at Bubba Ho-tep. Even though he subsequently dies of a heart attack, Elvis realizes that by standing up against the mummy, he essentially swelled his soul, and "scared off" the predator--like how you're supposed to make yourself look big when confronted by a predator. Bubba Ho-Tep implies that this is how Elvis gets his verve back and prepares himself for the final showdown with the desiccated devil.
Recommended for: Fans of a bizarre and surreal blend of black comedy and monster movie horror, with moments both gross and introspective. Bubba Ho-Tep could be summed up as "Elvis and JFK versus The Mummy", while delving into themes like mortality and the sanctity of the elderly.
Bubba Ho-Tep explores the nature of mortality and the treatment of the elderly, even if it is in its absurd own way. The mummy doesn't say much; when it does, it's through crass taunts in hieroglyphics. Bubba Ho-tep comes across as a real punk...a lower-tier haunt which JFK refers to as the "brother" of a better known pharaoh. This egomaniacal corpse uses his resentment of the living to justify his exploitation of the elderly, sucking out the souls of the aged in a humiliating fashion. Bubba Ho-tep is symbolic of the feelings of helplessness and embarrassment that comes with age--being at the mercy of bodily functions but being deprived of the physical strength to address them without aid. The mummy is also a surrogate for the amoral and unethical scumbags that prosper from elder abuse. Death is a constant motif in Bubba Ho-Tep, but the mummy is a perversion of that natural order--not only because he is undead, but in the way he ends lives prematurely. He collects the souls of his victims so that they have no chance to experience the afterlife, reincarnation, or whatever lies beyond that undiscovered country, and the film implies that these souls are digested and excreted by this wretched defiler. Elvis contemplates how he wishes he could see his daughter or ex-wife again, while he bemoans a growth on his genitals and his impotence. He is reminded of the latter when his late roommate's attractive daughter, Callie (Heidi Marnhout), comes to toss out her father's goods, including a Purple Heart which Elvis saves, and later when his nurse (Ella Joyce) administers an unguent on his privates ostensibly to ensure no infection spreads. Elvis's "impotence" is biological and existential, and the emergence of Bubba Ho-tep removes both of these hurdles; he once again feels "alive" and that he has something meaningful to live for. His crisis of self goes all the way back to when he felt that he couldn't go on as "Elvis" any longer, and had to retreat into an alias to feel alive. He comments that even though he portrayed virile icons of masculinity in his movies and on stage, he began running from the hard choices in his life rather than run the risk of failure. Jack Kennedy tells Elvis that in his research into the "Book of Souls" (yes, really), he discovered that mummies like this one cannot be satisfied with "small souls" for long. The implication is that these smaller souls come from those who are already dying or old, although they speculate that the mummy still goes after these because they are easier pickings for him. Elvis and Jack's souls become "too big" for him to down as easily because they stand up to him, which in turn gives them a fighting chance. This is intimated when another resident of the home--dressed like The Lone Ranger, and called "Kemosabe" (Larry Pennell)--fires off fake pistols at Bubba Ho-tep. Even though he subsequently dies of a heart attack, Elvis realizes that by standing up against the mummy, he essentially swelled his soul, and "scared off" the predator--like how you're supposed to make yourself look big when confronted by a predator. Bubba Ho-Tep implies that this is how Elvis gets his verve back and prepares himself for the final showdown with the desiccated devil.
Recommended for: Fans of a bizarre and surreal blend of black comedy and monster movie horror, with moments both gross and introspective. Bubba Ho-Tep could be summed up as "Elvis and JFK versus The Mummy", while delving into themes like mortality and the sanctity of the elderly.