- Directed by Don Coscarelli
- Written by Joe R. Lansdale, Don Coscarelli
- Stars Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis, Bob Ivy
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 32 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXGP07vrab8
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a crazy premise and a whole lot of fun. It’s certainly still a horror movie, and there’s some grim aspects to it, but there’s laughs too. The makeup, effects, acting, and script are great. Check this one out for sure.
Synopsis
We begin with an old-time newsreel of a group of archaeologists discovering the tomb of King Amon Ho-Tep in Egypt. The mummified remains then went on tour to museums around the world.
In present-day Mud Creek, Texas, there is a nursing home named Shady Creek. An old man who looks a little like Elvis wakes up in a nasty bedroom with a nastier roommate. No, he really is Elvis, and he’s not happy to be there. The roommate then dies.
That evening, an old woman steals the eyeglasses off another old woman in an iron lung. Then she steals a box of chocolates from a tray. She goes back to her room and pigs out. She ends up fighting with a giant cockroach- no, it’s a scarab. Suddenly, a mummy appears! Two deaths in two days, the mortuary guys are getting tired.
Elvis meets the dead roommate’s daughter, Callie, and he guilts her over not visiting. The nurse says to Callie that he’s obviously not really Elvis. She calls him Sebastian Haff, an old Elvis impersonator who fell off the stage and broke his hip twenty years ago. He’s never been right since. At least according to the nurse.
In truth, Elvis and Sebastian switched places for a break, with the agreement Elvis could step back in any time he wanted to. Except Elvis burned up his contract in a barbeque accident. Sebastian died with the world thinking he was Elvis, and Elvis continued life as an Elvis impersonator. Until he fell off the stage and broke his hip. We get a flashback that confirms his story. But, now no one believes that he is who he says he is. The only guy who does believe him is JFK, the former president and now a black man. “They dyed me this color, all over!” He didn’t actually die in that assassination attempt.
Late one night, Elvis gets up to pee and turns on the space heater in his room. He finds one of the scarabs, and he thinks it’s a cockroach too. He fights it off with his walker and karate moves. He finally traps it with a bedpan. He goes to see Jack, JFK, to tell him what happened. Jack says he saw “it” scuttling down the hall, and he doesn’t mean the bug.
The next morning, Elvis finds that the excitement the previous night has… excited him. The next night, Jack comes to him, warning about “It” being back again. Jack thinks it’s an assassin after him, so they go and check it out. They find Egyptian hieroglyphs scratched into the restroom stall like graffiti.
Jack claims that the creature had him last night, and was just about to suck his soul out through his ass when Elvis interrupted it. They read in a book about “soul suckers” who can draw it out of any orifice. Since the mummy is dressed like a cowboy for some reason, Elvis calls him “Bubba Ho-Tep.” What they’ve got here is an Egyptian Soul Sucker that comes for little meals each night. Old people don’t offer much energy, but they don’t put up much of a fight, either, so it’s like an easy buffet for the creature.
Elvis doesn’t really believe any of this until he sees the creature walking down the hallway. We get a quick vision/flashback that shows us how the mummy got there. The next morning, Elvis goes down to the creek to find the bus from his vision, which is really hard to do for an old guy with a walker.
Jack goes downtown and does some research on the mummy. The mummy was stolen for ransom but then the bus the crooks drove went off a bridge and was washed away into the creek near the nursing home. They never found the mummy. Elvis remembers his movies and decides this time, he wants to be a hero in real life.
Jack and Elvis make a plan, gather their weapons and set a trap. Finally, they spot the mummy outside. The mummy attacks, but they fight it off. Jack goes looking for it, but it gets him first. Elvis hops into Jack’s wheelchair and sprays the monster with alcohol and gasoline, then sets it on fire. Jack dies, but tells Elvis that he’s got to “take care of business.”
The mummy gets back up. The two fight and race toward the cliff on the wheelchair. They go over the side and Elvis loses his gasoline can but he’s still got the alcohol. Elvis sets the thing on fire again, and this time, the mummy loses the souls he had eaten and finally dies. Elvis is dying, but at least he saved all the others at Shady Pines.
Commentary
Bruce Campbell’s old age makeup is pretty good here. He’s wrinkly, but not so over-the-top as to look awful. Really, the whole concept for the film is just insane; old Elvis and JFK battle a mummy in a nursing home. Still, the acting sells it, and it’s a lot of fun.
It’s an ongoing joke that film mummies are slow and ought to be really easy to avoid. They’re just wrapped-up zombies after all. Who couldn’t outrun a mummy? Old people with walkers of course. Still, this pair manages to put up a good fight.