Bubba Ho-Tep
I'd heard some friends talking about this crazy movie with Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead / Army of Darkness) as a decrepit Elvis Preslely living in an old folks home in East Texas who ends up fighting an Egyptian Mummy. So two and a half years ago when I saw Bubba Ho-Tep sitting on the Movie Gallery shelf for a mere $14 I couldn't pass it up. I watched it the day I bought it and thought it was brilliant. But I think I was just in awe that someone came up with such a ridiculous story because all I remembered about it was that I thought it was funny. This past saturday night I was having trouble sleeping (which sadly is becoming the norm for me) so I poked around through my movies and decided to give this one another go. Again, I fell in love with this quirky story, but this time I laughed far less. The less I laughed the more I found myself thinking about the complexities of the "American Hero," growing old, and the pain of being forgotten... or worse yet, never really being known.
I usually try not to give too much of the story away in my reviews, however this time I feel like I have to explain the story a little more in depth in order to build the foundation for talking about what I think is actually at the heart of the movie here. SO if you don't want the story spoiled stop here, watch the movie, then come back and read and disagree with me in the comments section.
Here's the story... first off the King is not dead; he's in a retirement home in Texas. Back in his heyday he got so burned out, from drugs, shows, people loving his image and caring nothing for who he was, so he cooks up a scheme to escape the from monster that his manager, the record labels, movie studios, and the American public had created. He tracks down the worlds best Elvis imitator, Sebastian Hath, and swaps places with him. He draws up a contract stating that anytime he wants to he can swap back. Unfortunately the contract is lost and the real Sebastian now pretending to be the actual Elvis, has a weak heart and love for drugs, food, and women, which eventually lead to his death. The general public thinks Elvis is gone, but he's not, he just has no way of proving that he swapped places with the now dead guy. His only means of income is to continue on as Sebastian Hath impersonating himself. Let me stop here and say, if that were the entire movie... money well spent... thats genius. Fame creates a persona that gets forced on a guy. He rebels and escapes, only to be forced by fate back into his original role of playacting. Brilliant! And there's a lot to think about there, but the story gets thicker.
While in the home, Elvis, starts seeing people around him die. He knows it comes with the territory, but these folks deaths combined with an odd encounter with a huge scarab and the discovery of some ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics on the wall of the guest bathroom are enough to rattle the King's cage a bit. While wading through these strange experiences Elvis meets an unlikely companion. Former president Kennedy. Yep JFK is still alive too and in the same nursing home as Elvis. Well with the combined forces of the King of Rock n' Roll and americas most Rockin' president its time to get to the bottom of this mystery. Well long story short (kinda) a cursed mummy is on the loose eating people's souls to stay alive. He chooses the old folks home because its easy prey and also the residents are expected to die so the frequent deaths should raise no suspicion. This is one smart mummy. But he needs to eat frequently because old souls aren't all that nutritious. Well when the King and JFK figure out exactly whats going on its time to "T.C.B baby." (take care of bin-iss)
I think the writer of this film chose his characters very wisely. Elvis Presley, the all american pop hero, and JFK the only rock star president our nation has ever had, both who live on as legends due to their deaths. These guys were huge, as big as anyone can be I suppose, and their deaths only made them bigger icons. So to subvert the idea of the American hero, what better way to imagine that the two heroes immortalized by their deaths aren't dead at all but still kickin' it as nobody nut-jobs in a nursing home in rural Texas. (In the story the only people that believe Elvis and JFK are who they claim to be, are Elvis and JFK everyone else thinks they are crazy) Two of Modern American History's biggest icons that have been stripped of all that made them icons... their personas, their fame, their positions, their youth, and even in an odd way, their deaths. They were stripped of all that had made them who they were... or a better way to say it... they were stripped of all that the public had made them out to be and expected them to be. The question I found myself asking was, "What deems a person valuable?"
Well as if all that weren't enough to think about there's another level to the story. Aside from the position that JFK and the King find themselves in, forgotten and alone, they now are seeing that this Mummy is eating their friends' souls. What troubles them most about this is, oddly enough, the fact that they found hieroglyphics on the "shit house wall" means that the mummy eventually has to take a dump. Well if the only thing that he eats to sustain him is souls, and he then just shits them out that means that the souls of the people he eats don't get to rest anywhere, they just go down the toilet. So as if it weren't enough dealing with being old, forgotten, misunderstood, and all that jazz, now the boys have to fight to keep the one thing they've still got... their souls. They both know they are going to die, but they want to at least to have their souls live on. Isn't that a pretty common hope? To die well. To die and have peace. Its my hope, thats one of the reasons I believe the things I do, that when I die there will be peace. Its an odd way of getting at it, but in the end this film, to me, reflects so much of the common hope that people have. To not be alone, to not be forgotten, to be known for who you are not who you're made out to be, and if old age is inescapable to die well. This film also does an amazing job of conveying the pain of getting old... how unnatural the decay of the body is... and again eludes to the hope of an existence where the body doesn't waste away and where souls are free.
Its a great movie on so many levels. Its just plain entertaining, amazingly well contrived, funny, and there's a lot there to think about. Give it a watch, its worth the time. There are some pretty crude comments pertaining to male old age, but nothing that anyone hasn't heard before.
Long live the King!
