The first time I saw this, I didn’t know the story or anything at all about it. I found it spectacularly weird, sporadically funny, and I loved the score. This time around, I was surprised to find myself in tears by the end. This movie’s mainly a comedy, and a pretty damn hysterical one at that. But it’s also incredibly beautiful.

This telephone exchange between the two main characters has to be some of the best screenwriting ever:

• ELVIS
• Ask not what your rest home can do for you. Ask what you can do for your rest home.
• JFK
• Hey, you’re copying my best lines!
• ELVIS
• Then let me paraphrase one of my own. Let’s take care of business.
• JFK
• Just what are you getting at, Elvis?
• ELVIS
• I think you know what I’m getting at Mr. President. We’re gonna kill us a mummy.

That’s basically the whole movie in one beautiful concise nutshell.

Ossie Davis and Bruce Campbell are both fantastic. They play the comedy with amazing conviction (Ossie Davis’ explanation of how he, JFK, came to be sitting in a resthome as a black man always cracks me up). Campbell’s musing voiceover, though, is the star of the movie. It, too, is very funny, but it also hits really profound places, and when the final scenes arrive, the theme of holding on to dignity rises up full-on. “I’ve still got my soul…” “All is well.” “Thank you. Thank you very much.” It’s amazing that a film as downright bizarre as this manages to be so moving. One of the best films I’ve ever seen.
———————-

7th October 2004:

It’s taken me too long to get round to seeing this movie. I’m a huge fan of Don Coscarelli, purely because of Phantasm (well, and now this), and the premise of this movie sounded intriguing, even though I tried my best to avoid the specifics of the story (and I’m glad I did, it’s a movie you want to see as fresh as possible).

The movie is as funny as you’d expect a movie about geriatrics Elvis Presley and a black John F. Kennedy (he was dyed, you see) battling a soul-sucking mummy in their old-folks’ home, and as strange as you’d expect from the man who brought those terrifying little dwarf things in Phantasm. What you wouldn’t expect is the pretty strong theme about dignity that runs through the whole movie, backed up by a nice guitarry score by Brian Tyler.

Definitely one to feel happy about and get immediately if you see it in your local video store.

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