Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis

Released:21^st March 2005

Cert: 15

Imagine this (if you can) that The King (Elvis (Campbell)) isn’t dead but, by a bizarre set of circumstances, is actually convalescing in a remote Texan nursing home with a dodgy growth on the end of his penis.

            As a matter of coincidence, John F Kennedy ( Davis ) is also eking out his last days due to a CIA conspiracy that lobotomised him and coloured him black.

            On top of all that comes the rising of a 3,000 year old Egyptian mummy bent on restoring his evil reign on Earth by consuming the souls of the retiring residents of the home.

            It falls to zimmer-bound Elvis and wheelchair Jack to try to save the World.

            Campbell is brilliant as Elvis; he’s not doing a pantomime caricature but a performance displaying humour and humility in equal measure and the set-up for Elvis’s existence is quite sound so one’s disbelief need not be too suspended and the plot on its own should be enough to make you want to see this film.

            It is all so ridiculous but played completely straight that the humour is the blackest I’ve seen for a long time. Within the first sequence we are shown the brutality of this respite home as a lonely wandering pensioner soothes the discomfort of another trapped within an iron-lung only to pinch her glasses for a personal treasure. It’s a comedy of the horror of growing old and expendable as well as the horror of the evil, soul-sucking murders.

            However, if I had to offer a negative criticism it would be that it’s not really horrific at all; even though there is an element of tension and some stylised filming there was a distinct lack of gore. It is a low budget film so some of the effects are a bit iffy and I was expecting something along the lines of ‘The Elvis Dead’ but the humour is so dry and black that it makes the viewing a real pleasure.

            For the DVD aficionados come two audio commentaries; one by Campbell and director Don Coscarelli which gives a funny insight to the behind-the-scenes work and the second is by The King himself discussing his own views and history in relation to watching the film for the first time.     

            There are also a whole bunch of the usual featurettes: deleted scenes, TV spots, trailer, making of, etc, which makes for a whole lot more for your money than some of the better financed productions.

            Bubba Ho-Tep is a fantastically odd film that could take more than one viewing to make you comfortable to laugh out loud at octogenarians being systematically slaughtered by a red-neck Egyptian zombie but then again, what’s not to laugh at?