Do you want to make a horror film unique? Here’s how! Take the Director of Phantasm, Don Corsarelli; Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ossie Davis as a black JFK. Throw a dash of Cowboy Mummy into the mix and you got the unique and admittedly strange Bubba Ho-Tep. Want to make that dish even better? Add a sprinkle of Scream Factory Collector’s Edition Blu-ray and you have a dish worth serving over and over again.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
DISCS: 1
RUN-TIME: 93 min
ASPECT RATIO: 1.85:1
RESOLUTION: 1080p
AUDIO: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0
LANGUAGE: English
SUBTITLES: English
REGION: A/1
RATING: R
PRODUCTION DATE: 2002
RELEASE DATE: Nov 8, 2016
PLOT SUMMARY
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!
MOVIE REVIEW
One only has to read the above Plot Summary to know whether they are going to like or dislike Bubba Ho-Tep. Do you like your horror movies with some witty humour? Do you like your horror movies to be a bit on the slower paced side? What about boils on peckers? If you said yes to any of those, you either need to see a doctor ASAP or check out Bubba Ho-Tep.
Bubba Ho-Tep relies heavily on the performances of Bruce Campbell as Elvis (or is it Sebastian Haff?) and Ossie Davis as a dyed black to hide the truth JFK. Thankfully, the performances are fantastic and this helps put Bubba Ho-Tep above other films of its kind, which honestly, there are none like it.
Nevertheless, I should point out that Bubba Ho-Tep is on the slower side of your normal horror film. The plot takes its time to get going, relying on the musings of Bruce Campbell to keep the viewer interested. The movie does succeed at engrossing the viewer enough to stick around for all the wonderful comedic elements, which there are plenty. It also gifts you with a terrific monster in the shape of a Cowboy Mummy, who looks fantastic, all thanks to incredible makeup team.
There are moments where the film might pad the time out a bit more than it should, which could cause the ADD smartphone crowd to tune out, but if you stick with it, you’ll definitely end up ranking this Bruce Campbell comedic horror film high on your “what to watch every year” list.
BLU-RAY OPINION
Scream Factory has been cranking out the Collector’s Editions lately and one would have to think that some will have to suffer. There have been a few that really don’t scream Collector’s Edition, but thankfully, Bubba Ho-Tep is worthy of the name.
The video transfer isn’t anything impressive, as there are moments of what may or may not be compression artifacts (I didn’t put my face up against the screen to see), but for the most part, the video is clean. The same can be said for the audio, which comes in two flavours: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. No issues popping up there.
Thankfully, everything is looking great on the special features side of things. We have a new roughly 22-minute long interview with Bruce Campbell, who describes his time on set and after the movie came out. There is a bit of a disagreement over a potential sequel to Bubba, which sucks. Also included is a new interview with Don Coscarelli, who goes into a bit of detail as to why there is no sequel. The last new interview is a short one with Robert Kurtzman. For those that want to dump their older releases, you have all the old features included, plus another new commentary with author Joe R. Lansdale.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- NEW Audio Commentary With Author Joe R. Lansdale
- NEW All Is Well – An Interview With Writer/Director Don Coscarelli
- NEW The King Lives! – An Interview With Star Bruce Campbell
- NEW Mummies And Make-up – An Interview With Special Effects Artist Robert Kurtzman
- Audio Commentary By Don Coscarelli And Bruce Campbell
- Audio Commentary By “The King”
- Deleted Scenes With Optional Commentary By Don Coscarelli And Bruce Campbell
- “The Making Of Bubba Ho-Tep” Featurette
- “To Make A Mummy” Make-up And Effects Featurette
- “Fit For A King” Elvis Costuming Featurette
- “Rock Like An Egyptian” Featurette About The Music Of Bubba Ho-Tep
- Joe R. Lansdale Reads From Bubba Ho-Tep
- Archival Bruce Campbell Interviews
- Music Video
- Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spot
- Still Gallery
VERDICT
Bubba Ho-Tep will be the kind of movie that you describe to friends and they raise an eyebrow. This shouldn’t stop you though from popping in this Scream Factory Blu-ray, as you can show them what fun can be had with an old Elvis, who has a growth on his pecker, teaming up with a black JFK, to fight a Mummy with a cowboy fetish. Be sure to pick it up today!