Bubba Ho-Tep: Critic Reviews

Coscarelli, writer-director of the logy, fatuous Bubba Ho-Tep, is trying to will a cult movie into existence -- which, of course, never works.

Ho-Tep is a punch line in search of a setup.

Neither particularly funny nor scary, but tiresome.

In the end, what keeps it going is not the story but the delicious relationship between Elvis and JFK.

Coscarelli, who brought us four volumes of Phantasm, is a surefooted B-movie journeyman, and for Bubba Ho-Tep he's in a generously lunatic mood.

Done on the cheap but with great flair.

Often hilarious low-budget romp.

Bubba Ho-tep may sound bizarre, but it's a lot of fun.

Bubba Ho-Tep succeeds as goofy-yet- tender wish fulfillment, offering an Elvis who tries to redeem his self-indulgent persona and become a hero. It fails as the sort of Campbell vehicle that wears out VCRs and haunts midnight-movie houses.

It has the damnedest ingratiating way of making us sit there and grin at its harebrained audacity, laugh at its outhouse humor, and be somewhat moved (not deeply, but somewhat) at the poignancy of these two old men and their situation.

Coscarelli ... can't quite conjure a complete movie out the concept and stretches the material until its humorous conceits repeat ad nauseum.

Writer-director Don Coscarelli piles on unpleasant details and cynical asides as if they were the stuff of wisdom, though they seem intended to produce guffaws rather than thoughts

Bubba Ho-Tep takes care of business, baby.

Fry up a peanut butter and 'nana sandwich, hop in your Cadillac and take one last ride with the King.

A mismatched marriage of offbeat character study and unimaginative horror riffs.

It's a credit to the actors, particularly the superb Campbell, that completely preposterous material can be made strangely touching.

One of the most cool and tantalizingly bizarre flicks of 2003, this movie isn't afraid to try anything.

A zinger-filled crowd-pleaser that open-minded Elvis fans (but by no means all) will have fun with.

This absurdly clever caper is elevated by Bruce Campbell's pensive Elvis into a moving meditation on the diminutions of age and the vagaries of fame.

Writer-director Don Coscarelli, maker of such potent cult films as Phantasm and The Beastmaster, fails to come up with enough incidents and action to make this overly leisurely picture the zany fun it means to be.

An original horror movie worthy of your attention; original horror movies are hard to come by these days...

Don Coscarelli still doesn't know how to make cookie-cutter genre films. Let's hope he never learns how.

Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but there's enough here to entertain even those for whom 'cult' is a four-letter word.

There's plenty of scatological humour and knockabout fun to get one through the slower passages.