Review of Bubba Ho-tep (2002) by Sadrac A — 08 Dec 2009

Now here's a movie that feels like it maybe spent a little too much time in rewrites. I don't really know, but it just has that feeling of a fun concept that lost its sense of fun somewhere along the way.

There's actually a surprising amount of dramatic thought that was put into these characters, but when you're dealing with Bruce Campbell as a geriatric Elvis impersonator who may or may not actually be Elvis, it's hard to take any substantial dramatic thought seriously. The concept is interesting and fun. We take Campbell's Elvis character and toss Ossie Davis into the mix as another crazy old man who thinks he is (and may or may not be) Jack Kennedy with severe brain damage from the magic bullet and altered skin color. And then you take those two crazy old men and pit them against an ancient, soul-sucking mummy. That sounds like the broad outlines of horror movie comedy that we know and love Bruce Campbell for.

But Don Coscarelli, creator of both The Beastmaster and the Phantasm series (yes, that's right, both movies had multiple sequels, but don't worry, none of them were all that great), seems to have trouble letting go of the dramatic implications of the story he's put together for Bubba Ho-tep. There is an inherent dramatic irony to the situation of these old men who have given up on the world being forced to literally fight for their souls. And Coscarelli seems to want to explore those ideas in Bubba Ho-tep. So he pays some lip service to ideas of the value of life, and questions like "If you're an old man who's going to die within the year anyway, is your life worth fighting for?".

But ultimately most of his explorations into these dramatic themes are undone by the generally silly nature of the monster movie plot that surrounds these characters. Not to mention the idea that the characters might possibly actually be Elvis and Jack Kennedy. The movie's conspiracy theories around these two characters and their famous alter-egos play a bit preposterously and it honestly undercuts the ability to take the characters seriously. When the characters evolve beyond the Presley and Kennedy stereotypes into more mundane drama, we're generally not there to follow because the framework of the characters is just so silly.

This is one case where it feels like the idea was just overthought. The broad outlines of the concept seem appropriate for some silly, goofy, horror movie fun but somewhere along the way it just got way too serious. But it's a bit hard for me to hold that against Coscarelli, because essentially what he's guilty of is caring too much about his characters. Goofy horror movies just don't do that very well. But at the heart of it is a good intention. It's just really boring to watch.