I didn't take full advantage of my access to movie channels while I was at Alex'. I mostly wound up watching parts of movies I'd seen before, like the first 15 minutes of Hancock, or Black Dynamite. I caught the second half of 9, which I'd never seen. That wasn't bad, didn't end how I expected, but the story felt thin.
The one movie I did watch all the way through for the first time was Bubba Ho-Tep. I'd avoided it previously, but that was because I was confusing it with 3000 Miles to Graceland, which has Kevin Costner in it. Hey, they both have people dressed as Elvis in them, don't judge me!
Like the title of the post says, there's a rest home in East Texas, and it's become a feeding ground for a mummy, looking for easy (if not filling) souls to eat. The only two people who stand against it are Sebastian Haff (or is he Elvis, as he claims), played by Bruce Campbell, and Ossie Davis' character. Ossie's character believes he's really JFK, who was removed from power by the machinations of Lyndon B. Johnson. Ossie fully expects Lyndon and his cronies will send someone to finish him off one day, or else he'll perish some other way.
It takes some time for JFK to convince Sebastian/Elvis to help, but once he does, they set themselves to the task of defending their fellow residents from the mummy who's denying them an afterlife to prolong its own existence. John's the curious sort, willing to do the research, and Elvis is more the action-oriented type, because it's kind of nice to have something to do.
The rest home is a dreary place. It reminds me of the apartment building James Sunderland wanders through in the early stages of Silent Hill 2, just a little better lit. The walls of the home are stained, the fluorescent lights and tile floors make it all seem cold, and it's just a dreary place (except for JFK's room, which actually doesn't look too bad). Seeing what it's like there, one can see how Sebastian/Elvis would be ready to die, while being filled with regrets for lost opportunities, and how a threat like this would be welcome, simply as something more tangible to occupy the mind.
The film has some of the Army of Darkness feel to it. The fight scenes have a mixture of absurdity and clumsiness to them (as when Elvis threatens to show Bubba Ho-Tep his "stuff", which goes as well as you'd think for an elderly man with a bad hip). The mummy's dialogue is shown first as hieroglyphs on the screen, then a translation is provided beneath it, and it's comments are usually profane trash talk.
That tone clashes with much of the rest of the movie, especially Campbell's performance as Elvis. I'm not an Elvis aficionado, but most reviews I looked at say he captured the King well, which I can believe. He has the fire sometimes, and the showmanship, but there's also exhaustion, frustration, regret (lots of it), and questions about whether he made the right decisions, and if it's too late to change anything. I really enjoyed the performance, as it captured what I figure being old and stuck alone in a rest home would be like, but the tone of that clashes some with the stuff with the mummy, who wore the sort of hat you might seen in a Western* for some reason. I could argue the point was it would take something that severe to snap Sebastian/Elvis out of his funk, but I don't think I can convince myself of that.
I wonder if we're supposed to believe Elvis and JFK are who we say they are. I'm pretty sure we aren't supposed to think Ossie's character is really JFK, but I'm less so about the Sebastian/Elvis situation, as you've no doubt guessed since I've used that description a few times. It all seems a little far fetched, but it's a movie with a mummy eating people's souls, so I'm prepared to accept just about anything. Ultimately, it doesn't matter much, since they believe they are who they say they are, and maybe they even believe the other fellow is who he says he is. Either way, it's a story about two guys stepping up to save the day because there's no one else around who cares enough to try.
If you're unsure if it sounds good, I'll point out it's barely 90 minutes, so it's not a huge investment of time. Just be prepared for the things to shift once the mummy appears. It's not the same movie once they've set themselves to destroying their undead foe.
* Wide, round brim, the top sort of bowl-shaped, not real high. Not quite a sombrero.
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