Flash forward to the present day. Bruce Campbell, now mobbed by adoring hordes every time he makes a public appearance, is still not a huge A-list star, limited mostly to cameos in the likes of The Majestic and Serving Sara. To the world at large, he's still the Evil Dead guy, and most of his significant roles since, like his recurring character Autolycus on Raimi's Hercules and Xena shows, have cast him in that same role of campy action man. There's very little disputing his talent at such things, but the jury's been out on whether he actually had any range as an actor. Well, call that court to order, because believe it or not, a horror-comedy by the name of Bubba Ho-Tep, about an aging Elvis in a haunted rest home, is just the film to prove that not only is Campbell a good actor, he might just be a great one.
Go ahead and laugh. You're meant to. There are jokes aplenty, and scares, as would befit any collaboration between Campbell, writer-director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm) and wacky Texan author Joe R. Lansdale, on whose short story the film is based. But as absurd as it sounds, you may actually find yourself holding back a tear or two watching the lead performances by both Campbell and Ossie Davis, the latter of whom plays Jack, as in Kennedy, convinced that he's been lobotomized and had his skin dyed black by the CIA. No one has to be persuaded that Davis has acting chops, but Campbell amazes by utterly disappearing into his role. For at least a split second, he makes it possible to imagine that Elvis is really still around and making movies again.
It's very easy to go wrong making Elvis-themed comedies (3000 Miles to Graceland, say, or Six-String Samurai). Veering into camp, as some would claim Elvis himself did at the end of his life, would be easy, especially from an actor famous for exaggerated hamminess. And certainly this is not a film to be taken entirely seriously, not when Campbell's Elvis gets lines like, "I felt my pecker flutter once, like a pigeon having a heart attack." Or when the film's villain, Bubba Ho-Tep (played by stuntman Bob Ivy), gets his name because he's an Egyptian mummy who dresses like a redneck and behaves like one at times, writing hieroglyphic graffiti in a men's room stall while defecating the residue of the souls he's just eaten.
But what about Elvis? Shouldn't he, by rights, be dead, too? According to our protagonist, the real King got tired of fame and Colonel Parker, and switched places with an impersonator by the name of Sebastian Haff (also Campbell). After a few years of doing tribute shows impersonating Haff impersonating him, Elvis broke a hip, fell offstage and into a coma, and now sports a possibly cancerous lump on his genitalia (mercifully, this is never shown). When the threat of the redneck mummy emerges--along with Jack's friendship--Elvis finds himself reinvigorated, able to once again walk, get an erection and even perform some rudimentary karate moves.
Coscarelli displays a skillful directorial hand, never more so than when he manages to make Bubba Ho-Tep's patently fake-looking scarab generate some shocks. The big bug looks like a bargain-bin windup toy, but goosed up with a bit of slime and some remote-control wings, it somehow creates a sense of danger. Meanwhile, in the dimly lit halls of the rest home at night, the sounds of an iron lung bring Darth Vader to mind. Coscarelli even throws in a Phantasm reference or two--star Reggie Bannister gets a cameo, the mummy's hairdo resembles that of the villainous Tall Man, and the flying scarab recalls the Tall Man's killer spheres.
A poignant look at old age may not be what Evil Dead fans are after, but they can rest assured that Campbell has plenty of wisecracks herein that they can latch onto. More important, perhaps, is the fact that those who may not even be familiar with the name of Sam Raimi may wander in and discover an actor hitherto unknown beyond the cult circuit. The mention of a potential sequel at the tail end of the credits is probably just another gag, but the fact that it engenders even the tiniest spark of hope for further Elvis adventures is proof enough that the filmmakers have solidly scored.
