Bubba Ho-tep (2003)

This past weekend, I made sure to check the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, the IMDB, and any other available and reliable resource to make sure Bubba Ho-tep was actually being released before I took the time to write a review (i.e., took the time to translate then plagiarize reviews from obscure Norwegian magazines). I soon realized why I was so aggressively trying to confirm Bubba’s existence. Because I needed to make sure I hadn’t dreamed (or rather nightmared) the whole thing up. (After all, in dream-like fashion, at the screening I believed I had attended - wasn’t that throaty, tattoo ridden MTV metal-head VJ Ian Robinson sitting next to me making degrading comments to his friend about Fred Durst?)

I had to ask myself: Was there really a movie made about an Egyptian mummy that sucks souls from the orifices of old people at an East Texas rest home where the residents include a long retired, presumed dead Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) and a black man (Ossie Davis) who is convinced he is a dyed JFK? Is that possible?

The answer, at least in limited release and to some minor rumblings of critical acclaim, is yes.

Bubba Ho-tep, based on the writings of pulp horror writer Joe R. Lansdale, is exactly what it sounds like: One strange ass, tripped out movie. No, not strange ass like Mulholland Drive. No, not tripped out like Mars Attacks!. How bout like TerrorVision starring a young Chad Allen? Ok, a bit closer.

We could go over the mind-boggling plot points and you may be dazzled by the inventiveness, imagination, and lunacy – or you may just resolve to say “who cares” and “why”, so we won’t do that.

Instead, we’ll wrap up this peculiar, disturbing affair by giving credit where it is due.

Don Coscarelli gives us a well written (all things considering) film infused with a surprisingly serious, philosophical, almost enlightening fiber. There may be some deeper meaning to all this madness about living beyond your prime and regret, but it just barely escapes me how it all fits in.

Elvis, who could have been made so easily into a comic caricature, is given an introspective essence beneath the latex chin and graying, scraggly chops. Bruce Campbell, the type of cult acting figure whom you’ll either know everything he’s been in or never heard of him, turns in a chameleon like performance that is both sensitive and surreal. For him, it is a significant milestone. Ossie Davis is a wild-eyed hoot.

Regardless of anything I can say about the relative quality of a film like this, whether for good or bad, there remains one transcending truth. We need to champion films like Bubba Ho-tep when they are done “well”, as is the case here, because otherwise we may unintentionally inhibit flamboyant creativity in the arts. And I don’t think any one of us would want to live in a world without Vonnegut, Carnivàle, and Alien Ant Farm.

In my best Memphis snarl: “Thank you very much”.

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READERS' COMMENTS
From ASB man
You should start a bangitout.com mass movement to bring Bubba Ho Tep to the silver screen all over the city. It is the most absurd yet brilliant movie that I have seen in a long time. Saw the movie 2 days, I am still trying to process it.