Say, have you heard about the movie Bubba Ho-Tep? Starring Bruce Campbell as a geriatric Elvis, confined to a rest home with a cancerous growth on his hog? And Ossie Davis as an elderly black man who believes himself to be JFK, cleverly dyed by the evil Lyndon Johnson to hide the truth? Who find that an ancient, cursed Egyptian mummy in cowboy clothes, Bubba Ho-Tep, is stalking the rest home at night, feeding off the residents' souls, which it sucks out through their aged, withered bungholes?
It's good.
It's a comedy, as perhaps you might have gathered. You might imagine, from this brief synopsis, that it is wacky, or madcap, or silly, silly, silly. The funny thing is that it isn't, really. Sure, the premise and plot are, on the face of it, absurd. And it's funny; it has one or two incontinence jokes, to be sure. But it isn't just schtick. Old, incontinent, walker-equipped Elvis (and Bruce Campbell does a very good Elvis) is funny, but also sad; he's old, his life is over, and he's full of regrets. There is more to his character than just the silly-silly dimension. And JFK winds up being, of all things, dignified; it is hard to imagine, I know, but there you are. He's Ossie Davis; he has gravity.
It's an aggressive sort of comedy; aggressive enough to film a scene or two with a genuine horror feel. And to do some pretty good makeup. There's an attention to detail. It reminded me a bit of Being John Malkovich.
Only with more mummy.
Posted by aloysius at October 26, 2003 10:34 PM | TrackBack |