Such a frustrating disappointment

Nice effects though.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

A man (Bruce Campbell) claiming to be Elvis Presley is living in the Shady Rest Convalescence Home in Mud Creek, Texas. His story is that he switched places with Elvis impersonator Sebastian Haff. He stayed as Haff while the real Haff died as him. Twenty years ago, he fell off the stage impersonating himself and broke his hip. Now something is killing people in the home. His roommate dies and the daughter Callie Thomas (Heidi Marnhout) comes to clean out. Neither she nor the Nurse (Ella Joyce) believe the claim. His only friend is Jack (Ossie Davis) who believes that he is JFK. The two old men has to battle the Egyptian mummy Bubba Ho-tep who is eating the elderly souls.This is a really fun idea. It has great potential. The comedy is kinda funny but gets a little repetitive after the Elvis reveal. After a great first half, the movie stalls. I'm not sure if Bubba Ho-tep is enough or maybe the twosome needs a third. I thought they played up Callie to be part of the gang but she goes away. I understand the idea of old people fighting a slow mummy. It's not as funny as it sounds on the page and it's not as exciting as a regular horror movie. It's definitely good camp especially in the first half. The second half needs something more.

To be honest, I've never been a Don Coscarelli fan. I never liked his 'Phantasm' flicks and found his cinematic technique wanting.Having said that, Bubba Ho-Tep turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The film concerns an Elvis impersonator (superbly limned by Bruce Campbell) who may or may not be the real Elvis, living in a dumpy old rest home in Texas, old, grumpy, tired by the life he's allegedly led and wondering about his next meal, bowel movement, and lack of sexual urges.He is joined by the late, great Ossie Davis as another elderly resident who thinks he is John F. Kennedy. The lunacy begins when the two join forces to fight and kill a mummy who's appeared and who's killing off the elderly inhabitants of the rest home.While the supporting roles are handled well by Ella Joyce and Reggie Bannister (among others) Campbell and Davis are the whole show. Campbell plays Elvis as the real Elvis would play himself: as someone who verges on self-parody but never crosses that line. Davis is also excellent in a role that not many others could have played so well, and Coscarelli, working with a shoestring budget, demonstrates a number of clever touches (the mummy's subtitles, for example) that makes the film all the more enjoyable. It's never as scary as you think it might be, and it's never really as funny as it should be, but the acting is so good that it sucks you in and doesn't let you go until the final credits are done and the house lights come on.What it really is, is a meditation on growing old, being shuttled to the sidelines of life, and having the guts to go out with a bang. Hail to the King, baby. Elvis would have been proud of this.

Elvis and JFK go up against a soul sucking undead mummy in a nursing home. That sounds like a kick ass B - movie, and thats what Bubba Ho-Tep is, but its also so much more.The characters are so likable here, its actually quite an emotional story. Elvis is still alive and in a nursing home after he swapped places with an Elvis impersonator to get away from all the fame, unfortunately after the Elvis impersonator dies and he breaks his hip, he ends up in a nursing home, wondering why he gave up his life of fame and fortune and generally thinking (in a very humorous way) about life itself. Bruce Campbell turns in a solid performance as the King and makes us truly sympathise with his situation. Ossie Davis plays Jack or JFK and unlike Elvis, we aren't entirely sure if he actually is who he says he is, but we don't care because, just like Elvis, he is happier believing he is who he is and we are happy because he is happy. The relationship between these two characters is both funny and heart warming. Two friends against impossible odds, battling an undead mummy, now if that mummy also turned out to be an aging man claiming to be Boris Karloff, this film would be perfect.The story of the Mummy is fantastic as well. A story of character with occasional Mummy and cockroach appearances. The mummy actual look of the mummy is hilarious, with cowboy hat and boots. The contrast of the Mummy and the two leads is what gives the film its unique style of comedy, its not laugh out loud all the time, but you will have an extremely big smile on yourself the entire time.

It can be a tricky balancing act, coming up with the perfect film in the genre known as the horror comedy; a picture that is hilariously funny while at the same time being truly scary. And while there is no shortage of films with a decidedly uneven ratio of horror::comedy--such as 1960's "The Little Shop of Horrors," 1974's "Young Frankenstein" and 1975's "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"--such films usually come off as pure comedies, only with a horror setting. But when the balance is just right, such as in "The Ghost Breakers" (1940), "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948, and still probably the finest exemplar of the horror comedy ever made) and "Spider Baby" (1964), the result can be a timeless and wonderful entertainment. To my great surprise, to this latter category must be added Don Coscarelli's "Bubba Ho-Tep," which has become a deserved cult item since its release in June 2002. I was not expecting overly much from this film, to tell the truth, as I happen to share the minority view that Coscarelli's beloved horror film from 1979, "Phantasm," is an overrated, muddled head-scratcher, and was in no way compelled to seek out its three sequels. But "Bubba Ho-Tep," which was shot in only 30 days in Downey, CA, has redeemed the writer/director in my eyes, and I can say with little reservation that I absolutely love this hilarious, moving, imaginative, one-of-a-kind--and yes, genuinely scary--movie.In the film, the viewer learns two startling facts. One, Elvis Presley did NOT die on 8/16/77, at age 42 at his Graceland home of heart failure and drug abuse, but rather, after having switched places with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff prior to that date, lived on! When we first encounter him, he is a senior citizen, residing at the Mud Creek Shady Convalescence Home in east Texas, recuperating from a broken hip and suffering with what might be penile cancer. And secondly, JFK was NOT assassinated in Dallas in 1963, but rather was kidnapped, had part of his injured brain removed and the empty space in his noggin filled with sand, and then had his skin dyed black. Thus, now an old black man, also at the Mud Creek facility, JFK is one understandably mixed-up ex-president! Fortunately, for the two down-on-their-luck historic figures, some genuine excitement enters their lives when a 4,000-year-old, soul-sucking Egyptian mummy invades the Mud Creek grounds, in search of easy prey. All shook up, indeed! But do the King of Rock and Roll and the King of Camelot, at their advanced ages, stand half a chance against this newly resurrected King of the Undead?Yes, "Bubba Ho-Tep" surely is a sui generis creation, but the wacky conceit is completely successful, thanks to Coscarelli's clever and poignant script (based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale) and the performances of Bruce Campbell (who most viewers will know as Ash from the "Evil Dead" trilogy) as Elvis and Ossie Davis as JFK. The makeup job on Campbell is remarkable, and the actor at times sounds amazingly like the real deal; he easily steals the show. As the president, Davis brings to the role a degree of dignity and strength that makes us believe that his backstory just might be legit; perhaps this ISN'T just same crazy old geezer! The film features any number of lines that are laugh-out-loud funny, and I found myself grinning happily during its entire 92-minute length, when I wasn't cackling aloud outright. How amusing it is when Elvis thinks to himself, of his pretty nurse (a memorable performance by Ella Joyce), that 30 years earlier, "I could've made with the curly-lip smile and had her eatin' out of my as_hole"! Then again, the film is in parts sad and touching, as when Presley ruminates on the lot of the senior citizen: "Everything you do is either worthless or sadly amusing," and says to himself, while watching an Elvis movie marathon on TV, "Sh_tty pictures, man. Every single one." Yes, the film, at its heart, does have a sweet, sensitive and contemplative soul, as we watch these two magnificent men in their twilight, and ponder the fate of the cast-off senior in this youth-loving society. ("A & C Meet Franky" might still be the best in class, but "Bubba Ho-Tep" is surely the more touching film.) Thus, how wonderful it is to see Elvis and Kennedy come alive, reclaim their dignity (the scene where Elvis calls his nurse a "patronizing b_tch" is priceless), and unite to defeat their common foe! And as to that foe, again, the film boasts a truly impressive makeup job on actor Bob Ivy, the result being one extremely intimidating monster mummy from antiquity. Thus, a horror comedy that gloriously succeeds on both fronts, and one with a melancholy soul, to boot. Oh...I would be remiss if I didn't mention the wonderfully moody, twangy music that Brian Tyler has composed for the film; amazingly, the man plays every instrument on the soundtrack by himself. What a talent! Anyway, at the end of this hugely entertaining film, the following words appear on the screen: Elvis returns in "Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires." And really, I cannot imagine any viewer who wouldn't be thrilled to see a sequel to this priceless picture. Sadly, that sequel seems to have been permanently stalled, but we "Bubba Ho-Tep" lovers can only hope. Hey, if flying scarab beetles can turn into soul-sucking mummies in this world, then anything is possible....