I mentioned earlier that that on Saturday night we were driving up to the East Lansing Film Festival. We got there a little late to catch the beginning of “Gigantic” but we were in plenty of time for “Bubba-Ho-Tep.”
And a good thing too. It was packed. The film was showing in the ‘Hitchcock’ theater, which was basically a lecture hall with a projection booth. One of the festival organizers started the show off by heading down to the front, picking up a microphone and saying:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t have much to say about this film, so here’s Bruce Campbell.”
That’ll teach me to not bring my camera to a film festival.
After the ovation, he asked if we had any questions “about this film that you haven’t seen yet…” It turned into a great Q & A session where he talked about everything from childhood sledding accidents with Sam Rami to an upcoming Coen brothers movie where he has yet another cameo in a soap opera that one of the main characters is watching (his first one of those was in Fargo).
He did an excellent job keeping things entertaining. One kid in the audience made the rather petulant claim that “I could make a movie with better continuity than ‘Evil Dead.’ Actually, I HAVE made a movie with better continuity!” Bruce’s reply was great. “Was it released? No? Then SIT DOWN.” The rest of the audience was much friendlier and it was actually a bit of a disappointment when he stopped the questions and the film got rolling.
The movie itself was beautifully bizarre. It’s easy to make a one-line TV Guide summary of it: “Elvis and JFK team up to destroy a mummy that’s tormenting their nursing home.” It’s a lot tougher trying to untangle the rest of the story. It’s never entirely clear if the characters are just senile old men with strange fixations on historical figures or if they actually are who they claim to be.
Anyway, the film’s website is http://www.bubbahotep.com/. Find a screening near you and go see it if you can.