One of the many legacies that Bruce Campbell will leave behind is that he is willing to take on roles that not a lot of actors would. Say what you want about “Bubba Ho Tep” but who else would play an aging Elvis stuck in an elderly home fighting an ancient mummy that shambles around in cowboy garb? And Campbell is willing to commit, too, which makes him one of the last of a dying breed of actor.
After falling into a lengthy coma following a freak accident involving hip gyration, a now aged Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) wakes up in an East Texas nursing home, where he befriends Jack (Ossie Davis), an African-American senior who claims to be President John F. Kennedy. After residents of their quiet retirement community start dying of dubiously unnatural causes, Elvis and Jack discover that the perpetrator is Bubba Ho-Tep (Bob Ivy), an Egyptian mummy with murderous intentions.
“Bubba Ho Tep” celebrates the absurd and silly by staging a pretty unique and refreshing horror tale with a darkly comic twist. Don Coscarelli does a great job of making use of the small budget by setting his horror movie in a secluded and stripped down elderly home, the perfect place for a monster that preys on life forces. With “Bubba Ho Tep,” the monster is a presence that feeds on the forgotten and generally ignored, and Director/Writer Coscarelli conveys the true themes of his movie: the horror of growing old. Sure, an ancient mummy sucking the life out of elderly residents is scary, but even scarier is that no one really notices (or cares) because: you know—elderly people and whatnot.
Despite the decidedly dark and depressing overtones, “Bubba Ho Tep” is a fun, simplistic horror comedy with Campbell working beautifully off of Ossie Davis. “Bubba Ho Tep” doesn’t aim for a large scale, as it works as a great self contained horror movie that, sadly, we’ll never get a follow up to. But it’s tough to find anything like it out there, even in the modern film climate.
The Collector’s Edition comes with the twenty two minutes The King Lives! with Bruce Campbell, a fun interview with the always affable actor. There’s the twenty four minutes All is Well with Don Coscarelli, a similar interview with the writer-director, with some fun behind the scenes footage. There’s the nine minutes Mummies and Makeup with Robert Kurtzman, which features the film’s makeup supervisor, who discusses some of the techniques used for the film. There are three minutes of Deleted Scenes with optional commentary by Bruce Campbell and Don Coscarelli.
There’s the two minutes Footage from the Temple Room Floor, which features snippets that were evidently excised from the Egyptian flashbacks. There’s the twenty three minutes The Making of Bubba Ho-Tep, an archival piece, To Make a Mummy – Makeup and Effects is another five minutes long archival piece, Fit for a King – Elvis Costuming a six minutes archival piece focusing on costume design, and Rock Like an Egyptian, an twelve minutes archival piece about the film’s music. There’s the eight minutes Joe R. Lansdale Reads from Bubba Ho-Tep featuring the author reading (NSFW) passages to images from the film which have been filtered.
There are Archival Bruce Campbell Interviews, a Music Video, a Photo Gallery, the original Theatrical Trailer, and the original TV Spot. There are three commentaries, one with Writer Joe R. Lansdale is hosted by Michael Felsher, one with Director Don Coscarelli and Bruce Campbell, and another with “The King” featuring Bruce Campbell in character from the film.