Dir. Don Coscarelli, 2002, USA , 92 mins
Cast:
Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis, Ella Joyce, Heidi Marnhout, Bob Ivy
For many filmgoers, Bruce Campbell is an actor who you'll no doubt have seen, but who you can't put a name to. However, for countless of film fans, Campbell is a cult movie icon and a welcome presence in any movie. Campbell has had cameo roles in both Spiderman films (as he does in most of Spiderman director Sam Raimi's other films) and has appeared in numerous TV shows, including Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. However, Campbell is probably most famous for his role as Ash, the much put upon leading man in Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy, who suffers no end of indignities and untold amounts of physical punishment at the hands of some resurrected demons. Campbell seems to enjoy playing characters who find themselves thrown into outlandish situations and Ash in the Evil Dead films stands as the archetypal Campbell character; an ordinary guy, sarcastic, cynical, selfish, but essentially heroic when it comes to the crunch. Now Campbell stars in Bubba Ho-Tep, and his portrayal of Elvis Presley could well be his best performance yet.
Set in the present, Bubba Ho-Tep tells the story of the King of Rock 'n' Roll (Bruce Campbell), who didn't die in 1977, but who is alive and well in the 21st century. Having grown tired of the burden that fame and fortune placed upon him, Elvis swapped places with an Elvis impersonator and chose to live a quieter life, while the impersonator became the real Elvis for the wider world. It was the impersonator who died in 1977, but the real Elvis lived on in obscurity and ended up in an Elderly rest home in Texas. While Elvis muses on his past, an Egyptian mummy named Bubba Ho-Tep (Bob Ivy) turns up and begins sucking the souls from the residents of the home. Convinced of this by Jack (Ossie Davis), a fellow resident in the home and a black man who believes that he's President John F. Kennedy, Elvis decides to take action and teams up with Jack to stop the evil mummy from continuing his soul sucking slaughter.
After reading that synopsis, many people will probably roll their eyes, laugh derisively, dismiss the film and plump instead to see a bigger budgeted, more aggressively hyped, but ultimately soulless, machine-tooled blockbuster. It's ironic that a film about an elderly Elvis combating a mummy who steals souls should have more genuine heart and soul than many so-called blockbusters, or even some more highly-touted 'serious' movies. Sure, Bubba Ho-Tep is ridiculous, but it's also unpretentious, witty and unexpectedly moving in its look at a legendary icon who wants to find some meaning in his life again. Based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, director Don Coscarelli avoids employing elaborate camera work and unconvincing CGI and for the most part plays it straight, which makes the outrageous situation more believable, and the comedy and horror more effective. The film mixes the genres up and finds time for pathos amid the absurd premise. The humour comes from the absurdity of a believable Elvis Presley faced with both everyday burdens (such as his own mortality and a dull routine in the rest home) and the extraordinary events that take place with the arrival of the Egyptian mummy.
At the centre of Bubba Ho-Tep is Campbell's performance as Elvis and he's the glue that holds the whole thing together. The film works best when Campbell 's Elvis lies in bed at the rest home, reflecting back on his life in voiceover. He reminisces about his decision to escape from what he saw as the burden of his rock star life, regrets his choice not to inform his wife and daughter that he's still alive and grows frustrated at the loss of his sexual potency. Although Campbell bears only the slightest physical resemblance to Elvis, he manages to portray this much-parodied figure as a real person and humanise an icon in the midst of an absurd situation, and in the process, rescue Elvis from the Las Vegas era caricature that he's often portrayed as. Although the premise is ludicrous, Campbell 's performance manages to anchor it into reality: he makes Elvis as vulnerable and flawed as any person, which turns the King into a character we can empathise with and root for. The crisis involving the mummy allows Elvis to redeem himself and give his life meaning once again. Ossie Davis' JFK is also portrayed sympathetically and without condescension. Jack may be deluded in his belief that he's a former US President (but, maybe he really is JFK and Elvis is not really Elvis - who knows?), but that doesn't mean that the filmmakers think he's any less deserving of our respect, or any less heroic when teaming up with Elvis to fight the threat posed by the mummy.
All this makes Bubba Ho-Tep sound far too earnest to be enjoyed, but thankfully the film takes these characters and has a lot of fun with the predicament that they find themselves in. There's Elvis' battle with a giant bug, a series of flashbacks that show us how Elvis ended up in the rest home and, of course, Elvis and Jack's battle with the mummy, with Elvis donning one of his iconic Las Vegas suits and cape, which bestows a costumed superhero status on the King. Bubba Ho-Tep feels like a film that will rapidly gain cult status among film fans. With the term 'cult film' being all too easily applied to any film that steps outside the predictable boundaries of mainstream Hollywood, Bubba Ho-Tep feels like the real deal; a genuine cult film that can't be easily pigeon-holed into one genre and doesn't feel as if it's been test screened and subjected to focus group-dictated changes in order to make it more palpable to a wider audience. As time goes on, the cult reputation of Bubba Ho-Tep will no doubt grow and as good as everyone in the cast is, the film once again shows Bruce Campbell to be one of the most enjoyable actors to watch, and one of the most underrated performers around.
Martyn Bamber
|
