I finally got to see Bubba Ho-Tep recently. What an odd but completely beguiling movie.
I sat down to watch it with a bunch of pre-conceptions and expectations. A low-budget ($500K) movie starring Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ossie Davis as JFK fighting a mummy in an Old Folk’s home in East Texas - how could you not have ideas as to what sort of movie it would be? I spent a summer in Stuttgart during college working in an old folk’s home. Most of them thought they were Leni Riefenstahl or Field Marshall Goering.
From the first frame I knew I had it all wrong. The plot moved forward extremely slowly, action was minimal, the movie was very short, much of it was a voice-over and the horror was totally non-horrific. Enough normally to make me hate it (I think it’s why I cannot watch 99% of the stuff made in Europe - I sit there thinking “do something for the love of god”). In this case however, the writing was some of the best I have heard in years - not one word or line went to waste. The acting was superb with both Campbell and Ossie Davis at the top of their game. But most of all it is side-splittingly funny. Snot out the nose funny. Giggling hours later funny. And it’s been a hell of a long time since I heard the word Kemosabe in anything.
They obviously managed to get a good distribution deal as we were able to get it in the Xtravision in Bandon. Don’t watch it if you are tired but it is a movie not to be missed.
A few sample quotes courtesy of IMDB:
JFK: Just what are you getting at, Elvis? Elvis: I think you know what I’m getting' at Mr. President. We’re gonna kill us a mummy.
Elvis: Don’t make me use my stuff on ya, baby!
Elvis: It’d been two presidential elections since I’d had a boner like that.
Elvis: LBJ is dead JFK: Well, that ain’t gonna stop him
[killing a scarab beetle] Elvis: Never, but never fuck with the king!
Elvis: No offense, Jack, but President Kennedy was a white man. JFK: They dyed me this color! That’s how clever they are!
JFK: He had me on the floor. I had his mouth over my asshole! Elvis: A shiteater? JFK: I don’t think so. He was after my soul. Now you can get that out of any major orifice of a person’s body. I read about it. Elvis: Oh, yeah? Where, man? Hustler?
Elvis: Now the two key words for tonight - “caution” and “flammable”. JFK: Also “watch your ass”.
Elvis: T.C.B., baby.
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