Bubba Ho Tep

Directed By: Don Coscarelli

Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis,

I first watched Phantasm on a crummy VHS rental that was cut by the British “Don’t call us censors” censors. They trimmed the sphere attack sequence and that made me sad. At 13 years old that stuff made me sad, now it just makes me mad. I digress. I saw the talent flowing forth from Coscarelli and liked the ensemble he put together. The look, the atmosphere of the movies was inspiring.

So, the Phantasm movies became a favourite of mine. Coscarelli showed in Phantasm IV just how you can make a worthwhile sequel, and make it look good on no budget. The cinematography alone was top drawer.

Back in 1989, I read a superb compilation called Book of the Dead. Yes, you guessed it, it was a compilation of living dead stories. One of them stood out from the rest, even from Stephen King’s excellent “Home Delivery”; it was Joe R Lansdale’s “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks”. An effective, taught novella that ended up as a graphic novel and would also make a great movie.

Years later, I began reading the Hap Collins books, a series written by Joe R Landsdale before anyone had heard of Cormack McCarthy, and got hooked on his writing. To hear that Coscarelli and Lansdale had effectively teamed up to bring a short novella entitled “Bubba Ho-Tep” to the big screen captured my interest.

Justifiably, Bubba-Ho Tep became an instant cult classic; not surprisingly with the pedigree behind it. Coscarelli does the novella justice and captures the qualities of the book superbly. Far from just a low budget horror, it highlights what it means to get old and injects the movie full of pathos. There are some genuinely touching moments that don’t feel out of place in a movie where a Mummy is sucking souls out of old people’s asses in a home for old people. It makes me wonder what Coscarelli could have done with My Name is Bruce, which I found to be an aching disappointment and missed opportunity.

I won’t go on to analyse the plot as chances are you, dear reader, are already familiar with the story. However, Coscarelli deserves kudos for sticking close to the novella in the same sort of way that you’d expect Frank Darabont to stick to a Stephen King novel; changing little and understanding the power of the original narrative.

Bruce Campbell’s performance is legendary and showed me that he can put in a fine performance despite the lack of Mr Raimi in the Director’s chair. His ability to mimic Elvis without it descending into parody is brilliant. The narration is well done and helps the comedy element of the story and also adds to the pathos, particularly later on in the story. Campbell can now be seen as Sam Axe, in Burn Notice which finally (in my view) has legitimised him as an actor after the run of B-Movies that he has starred in. This movie was the beginning of all that. There has been mention, on fan sites, that Campbell deserved an Oscar for the performance. They’re not that wide off the mark. Like Howard Sherman’s Bub, in Day of the Dead (1985), Campbell put in a performance that, sadly, not enough people will see.

Ossie Davis plays “JFK” with a touch of believable madness. He totally sells the fact that he believes what he thinks he is; JFK’s brain in another guy’s body. There are no weak links in the supporting cast at all.

The effects are what you would expect, fairly low rent but get the job done.

Summary:

This is a welcome Blu-Ray release loaded with extras. Quite what is exclusive about the Campbell introduction escapes me as it appears to be an introduction to a special screening, but this doesn’t matter. This is a worthy replacement of our old DVDs. Get it and “Hail to the King” baby.

8 out of 10 (Wayfarer)

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