Bubba Ho-Tep Steelbook 4K Ultra HD
Bubba Ho-Tep Steelbook 4K Ultra HD
Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness) “gives his greatest and most entertaining performance to date” (Premiere) as an aging and cantankerous “Elvis” in this “zinger-filled crowd-pleaser” (The Hollywood Reporter) from writer-director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, John Dies at the End)! When mysterious deaths plague a Texas retirement home, it’s up to its most sequined senior citizen to take on a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy with a penchant for cowboy boots, bathroom graffiti and sucking the souls from the barely living!
Bonus Content:
- 4K Scan from the Original Camera Negative
- In Dolby Vision (HDR 10 Compatible)
- Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Don Coscarelli and Actor Bruce Campbell
- Audio Commentary with Author Joe R. Lansdale
- Audio Commentary with “The King”
- Previously Unreleased Featurette: Bubba Ho-Tep Filming Locations Then and Now
- Previously Unreleased Featurette: Bubba Ho-Tep Egyptian Theatre Premiere
- Previously Unreleased Featurette: Bubba Ho-Tep at The Toronto Film Festival
- Audio Commentary with Director Don Coscarelli and Actor Bruce Campbell
- The King Lives: An Interview with Bruce Campbell
- All Is Well: An Interview with Don Coscarelli
- Mummies and Makeup: An Interview with Makeup Effects Artist Robert Kurtzman
- The Making of Bubba Ho-Tep
- To Make a Mummy: Makeup and Effects
- Fit For a King: Elvis Costuming
- Rock Like an Egyptian: How Celebrated Composer Brian Tyler Created the Stunning Score
- Bubba Ho-Tep: The Music Video
- Joe R. Lansdale Reads Bubba Ho-Tep
- Deleted Scenes with Optional Audio Commentary with Don Coscarelli and Bruce Campbell
- Footage From the Temple Room Floor
- Archival Bruce Campbell Interviews
- Music Video
- Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spot
- Photo Gallery
| SKU: | B0GTZG9V5L |
Comedy fantasy horror.
Fun films for older audiences are a rare thing in this age of public information message teaching aids disguised as movies. This film isn’t that recent and is better for it. Bruce Cambel plays Elvis who is still alive and resides in a residential home for seniors. He and a friend discover a mummy who is bumping off residents at the home, glorious dumb fun a must for Bruce fans. Funny and some tender moments great cast and well acted. Some good monster effects with some cool camera work. Why wouldn’t you want to see it.
very unusual movie
This movie was very unusual, it kept me interested and entertained the whole way through but at the end I found myself wondering that the heck did I just watch? if you are like me and like something different, this is i
“Bubba Ho-Tep” is the movie you wish you’d made with the script you wish you’d written with the performance you wish you’d gotten out of your actor and the most kicking soundtrack ever you wish you’d gotten your composer to write. Absolutely and completely fresh and original this one stands out like a shining star amongst the sea of dreck that calls themselves movies after the great run from 1989-2001.
The driving force of the film is its great premise: “No matter how old you are you can still make a difference”. And it proves it beautifully. “Bubba Ho-Tep”, based on the novella of the same name by Joe R. Lansdale, is the story of Elvis Presley and how he traded places with Elvis impersonator Sebastian Haff who later died from a drug overdose while in the mean time the real Elvis fell off a stage while he was Elvis Presley pretending to be Sebastian Haff pretending to be Elvis during a performance at one of his Elvis impersonator concerts. In addition an unfortunate propane accident destroys the contract the two drew up together thus forcing Elvis to never be able to return to his former self as the King of Rock and Roll and forever remain an impersonator. Elvis Presley’s accident causes him to end up in a dilapidated retirement home in Texas where he meets and befriends John F Kennedy played by Ozzie Davis who claims his skin was dyed black and “they” locked him up in the place. Then there’s also this Egyptian Mummy named Bubba Ho-Tep who’s come back from the dead to suck the souls out of the helpless inhabitants of said retirement home after a bus crash. And it’s up to the aging Elvis and JFK to stop the monster from killing them all and destroying their souls. Are you with me so far?
Bruce Campbell gives a brilliant and what should have been an Oscar nominated performance as Elvis Presley/Sebastian Haff not only taking on the iconic persona of the King of Rock and Roll but also deeper levels dealing with the realization that he no longer has sex, he has to move about with a walker and he may be dying. His voiced over inner monologue is fantastic as we get to commiserate with his conflicted thoughts of having left stardom behind and his vacillating on whether he did or did not do the right thing. Most poignant are his still deep feelings for Pricilla and his torment and guilt over not being the father he wished he could have been for his daughter Lisa Marie. A great scene which shows this is when the sexy daughter of his recently deceased roommate comes in and heartlessly dumps both her father’s chocolates and his purple heart medal, box and all, into the garbage as if none of the old man’s accomplishments or life for that matter were worth a thing. This is especially disturbing to Elvis as we find out later he always wanted to be not only a good father and husband but a real hero and not a fake one like in his films. He asks the man’s daughter if he may keep the medal and the chocolates which she has no problem doing. His acquiring of the Purple Heart becomes the first step into Elvis changing the course of his life.
The movie is good at showing the bureaucracy of the retirement home and the poor conditions of the people left to live in it. The condescending nurse, the supercilious owner and the detached and clumsy hearse drivers all work to show the lack of compassion of the establishment for those who have been locked up and forgotten. In a great scene, the nurse comes over to patronize Elvis as he stands outside enjoying some flowers in the sunshine telling him to come back inside out of the light and into the dank confines of the miserable house. It’s a wonderful moment here when he finally stands up to her and cuts her off from applying his salve which she has developed a quasi-perverted fondness for and tells her to stop treating him like a baby. We can see him building up his courage to fight the mummy in the big showdown which has got to be one of the weirdest fight sequences ever filmed involving a motorized wheelchair, a walker and of course a mummy who can vanish at will.
“Bubba Ho-Tep” is a great mix of horror, comedy and surrealism that is a rare find in film. It deftly runs the gamut from the obscene to the poignant as well as being great entertainment and a lot of fun to watch. Check out the music video of “The King’s Highway” which is a great part of the terrific score which should have also been recognized at the Oscars. Also entertaining are Bruce Campbell’s commentaries in the booklet that comes inside the DVD as well as the audio commentary for the film.
Elvis is alive …and living in an east Texas retirement facility, although “living” might be too gracious a term – he spends most of his time in bed, getting his “crankshaft” lubed-up by one of the nurses. You see, his “fixture” below the waste has a big cancerous tumor on it, which will be the ultimate downfall of The King.
Or will it?
As Elvis lies in bed, using his bedpan, hoping for an erection, or just wasting away, strange things begin to happen. A weird cockroach (actually a scarab) wanders the halls of the old folks home. And following the cockroach is a cowboy-boot-and-cowboy-hat-wearing mummy! What? Not only that, but this mummy survives by sucking the souls out of the elderly population in Elvis’ care facility. I mean, who’s gonna notice if a few old geezers die off unexpectedly, right?
Enter JFK (yes, he’s still alive too, but has been dyed black and his brain removed for reasons of national security), who stumbles upon the secret of the ancient, soul-stealing creature. This mummy was being shown around the United States in the 1940s, but the bus transporting his body crashed into a nearby river, and the creature was freed from his sarcophagus. Uh-oh.
Can two washed-up American icons beat Bubba Ho-Tep?
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This is one of those films that you just HAVE to see to believe. If you’ve come this far in my review, I have no doubt struck your interest (or, at the very least, some form of morbid curiosity in you.) So let me tell you a bit more about this film’s machinations.
Bruce Campbell (aka The King of Camp) stars as Elvis Presley. Elvis didn’t die on the toilet, but instead had traded places with an Elvis impersonator in hopes of getting back to his roots. But a fall off of a stage ended the real Elvis’ days and put him in a convalescent hospital, while the fake Elvis (masquerading as the real King) is the one who dies of a drug overdose. So, of course, no one believes Elvis is Elvis, just thinking he’s some crazy old coot who would’ve liked to have been the King of Rock-n-Roll.
This is Bruce Campbell’s ultimate roll. It is the character he was BORN to play. Looking at him and the extensive make-up he wears (over two-and-a-half hours worth every day of the shoot), it’s often hard to see the actor and not the character. Mr. Campbell’s moves, voice, mannerisms, and looks match that of an aging Elvis so well that suspending believability was easy.
And speaking of suspending believability …
A lot of you may be asking “How the heck can you believe that a black man is JFK?” It is possible. But only when someone as strong as Ossie Davis plays the character. Let’s remember, this is the same actor who gave the eulogy at Malcolm X’s funeral.
Although this film has been called many things (campy humor, mummy comedy, Elvis-mummy-horror-drama-comedy, etc.), to me it clearly defies categorizing. While there are definitely some laughable moments, especially when Bruce Campbell uses old Elvis cliches (i.e., “Don’t make me use my moves on ya, baby!” etc.), there are also some incredibly dramatic shots that make you think about those that live in care homes around the world, and how families often throw their unwanted elderly into them. Early on in the film while Elvis is lying in bed, he watches the world move by him in super-fast speed, drugged up on medication or his mind just not caring what happens. We also get to see his roommate pass away and his roommate’s daughter come to collect his things. It was the first time Elvis had seen her in the many years that his roommate had been his roommate. A terrible and truthful exposition on today’s society.
It’s also worthy to note that the film’s speed is slow to get moving. And thankfully so. The build-up within the characters’ lives was key to gaining understanding and empathy toward JFK and Elvis. So when we see Elvis (Bruce Campbell) using a walker throughout the film, but moving his hips like Elvis, it becomes both poignant and hilarious at the same time.
I also need to mention that, although Bruce Campbell is the king of campy films (Evil Dead, etc.), this film was a giant leap forward for him. As I watched Bubba Ho-Tep, it was often times difficult to relate to it as “campy”. It really didn’t feel that way at all.