Bubba Ho-tep

Elvis (Bruce Campbell) and JFK (Ossie Davis) search for the mummy.

Herald rating: * * * 

The publicity material says it all: "If you see only one Elvis v mummy movie this year, make it this one." Deliciously overwrought and often hilarious, this horror spoof starts much better than it ends - but it's plenty of fun along the way.

The title character is an undead Egyptian mummy who walks the corridors of the Shady Rest Convalescent Home, sucking the souls from the sleeping patients. His forename, a southern term for a southern man, recognises that he stalks the American South where he was marooned when the bus containing a travelling exhibition of mummies crashed into a river.

Among the residents of the Shady Rest is one Elvis Aaron Presley (Campbell), who, after his faked death, was making a good career as an Elvis impersonator before dislocating his hip and who now lies in the Shady Rest trying to remember what an erection felt like and feeling distinctly sorry for himself.

He teams up with another resident Jack (Davis), who believes he's JFK despite the fact that "they" made him black. "Can you think of a better way to hide the truth?" he asks a sceptical Elvis.

There's not a whole lot more to the storyline, which feels rather padded - its source material was a short story and there's a sense the makers didn't really know how to stretch it to feature length.

The climax ignores some of the basic principles of undead-hunting but the film is sustained by a generous tone which never descends to cheap satire, as well as by Campbell's wonderfully self-mocking performance and some terrific one-liners. Empty-headed fun. 

CAST: Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis
DIRECTOR: Don Coscarelli
RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes
RATING: M (sexual references)
SCREENING: Queen St, Rialto