Cast:
Bruce Campbell (Elvis Presley / Sebastian Haff), Ossie Davis (John F. "Jack" Kennedy), Ella Joyce (The Nurse), Heidi Marnhout (Callie Thomas), Bob Ivy (Bubba Ho-Tep), Larry Pennell (Kemosabe), Daniel Roebuck (Hearse Driver), and Reggie Bannister (Rest Home Administrator) Directed by Don Coscarelli (#1459 - Phantasm)
Review:
"You know what? Bruce’s fans have always known he’s a great actor. Everybody in Hollywood just sees him has this clownish character. But here he gets to be really subtle. His best moments in this film are not showy at all, they are simple. And you can almost hear his fans think: I knew he was a great actor! I knew it! I’m glad that the film also appeals to his fans. Because it’s a story about age and death and friendship. It might apply more to someone in their forties or fifties or sixties. But to have the Evil Dead fans enjoying it, brings me so much satisfaction. "
In 1994, Joe R. Lansdale wrote a novella involving a not quite-dead Elvis Presley living out the end of his days in a Texas resting home...at least if a mummy has anything to say about it. Of course, that novella was weird enough to fit right in for an anthology collection (called "The King is Dead"), although most stories don't generally involve a growth being found around a certain male body part in detail. Around that time, he had been interested in working with Don Coscarelli (an optioning of his story "Dead in the West" went nowhere). Folks might remember him as the director behind the first four Phantasm films, with Bubba Ho-Tep being his first non-Phantasm film since Survival Quest (1989). Coscarelli was recommended by Sam Raimi to approach Bruce Campbell about doing a film together, and while it took a few years to get around to filming. Coscarelli wrote the screenplay that came mostly from Lansdale's novella, which had merely alluded to how Elvis switched places with an impersonator. The movie was shot at the Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Hospital in Downey, California to go along with effects provided by KNB EFX. The resulting movie (one that basically had no problem with the dialogue except for just who would narrate it, which eventually went to Campbell) received a limited distribution on the roadshow circuit (as toured by the director with the over three dozen prints struck of the film). While the film did not exactly inspire "Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires" that you can see teased at the end credits (namely because Campbell had some issues with Coscarelli's ideas, which apparently intended to have Paul Giamatti play Colonel Tom Parker), the film has a fair cult following two decades since its release. Coscarelli returned to directing features with John Dies at the End (2012) while Lansdale wrote another Bubba story with Bubba and the Cosmic Bloodsuckers in 2017.
Sure, you go right for the title when it comes to wondering about the movie, it just stands right out. Aside from the casual interest in wondering just what lurks beyond the obvious in a mummy and an Elvis caricature, there are a few fun moments to have in the neat kind of shaggy comedy-horror movies. It casually moves along for 92 minutes for a mummy movie that goes with the most ideal target for a lumbering ancient being (that gets a cheeky explanation for where it came from: lost during a museum tour): old people that nobody will suspect to be sucked out of their life at a nursing home. Coscarelli took great care to make a film where our hero is not merely fodder for cheap jokes but instead is someone that we believe is the real deal in magnetic old glory that lives on just as much as the image people hold of Elvis in his prime. Campbell really delivered when it mattered most in pathos, pure and simple. Davis apparently was keen on the script enough to overrule his agent and express interest (Coscarelli had Mick Garris write a letter on his behalf asking Davis himself). He lends a charming dignity to the proceedings that has clear chemistry with Campbell and even a few moments to engage in humor (as one does when playing on JFK conspiracies and kooky explanations for claiming to be not dead and also dyed). The peril that comes with aging is knowing that the regrets will pop in our old minds just as much as the memories we tried to make in what we called our glory days. Some people get to live out their days in a blaze of choices and others sit there to rot in ways I can't imagine, and the film dwells in the company of aging goes well with the snappy dialogue that comes through (narration or otherwise) in mummy confrontation, codger style. The climax is poignant enough to deliver what you would expect from its surroundings that benefits its audience and sends them remembering that all really can be well in the end. It is straight to the point in offbeat entertainment that has a few chuckles and a worthwhile duo going along with the material on its face to deliver a movie worth popping in one night on the strength of its worthwhile reputation over the past two decades.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment