by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

"My eyes bugged out of my head and my jaw hit the floor," says fan-fave genre actor Bruce Campbell about his first reading of the script for Bubba Ho- Tep, the action-horror-comedy that’s a cornerstone of Fantasia’s schedule this year. Of course, it’s not too hard to picture Campbell pulling a fleshand- blood Tex Avery moment - his cartoonish facial contortions (and monumental chin) are familiar to anyone who’s seen him in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead flicks.

But back to Bubba: "It was the weirdest script I’d ever read! Here’s this story about an ageing Elvis, living in a rest home in East Texas, where his best friend is this complete psycho - an old black man who thinks he’s John F. Kennedy, that his assassination was faked, they dyed him black to hide him and his brain is still in a jar in the White House! And then, they have to battle an Egyptian mummy that’s feeding on the souls of the rest home’s residents!

"Thing is, there’s a whole lotta genuine pathos to the story." That there is, and it’s best described by director Don Coscarelli, the man behind the brilliantly original Phantasm series.

"None of us are getting any younger," says Coscarelli, "and staring that rest home in the face is a pretty frightening proposition. There are a lot of elements in the short story, and ultimately the movie, that deal with that - and obviously the redemption of Elvis, giving him a chance to go out a hero, the way he was meant to."

LONE STAR STATE OF MIND

The film is a pretty direct adaptation of a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, and that short story is reflective of Lansdale’s modus operandi. He may leap genres, diving into horror, crime, fantasy and black comedy, but Lansdale consistently draws on the socio-cultural specifics and trashy pop mythology of his native Texas and the drive-in cinemas littering it. Moreover, Lansdale’s initial premises may be utterly ridiculous, but scratch the surface and there’s always something deeper and more substantial underneath.

Coscarelli had been wanting to work with Lansdale for several years - they almost got Joe’s book Dead in the West off the ground as a film project. Upon reading Bubba Ho-Tep, though, he threw himself into a long, uphill battle to see it properly translated to celluloid, a battle that years later he has clearly won. Coscarelli tips his hat to Lansdale’s concise and "cinematic" style, easing the transposing process, and also to the man’s lurid iconography.

"He used to have this way of writing where his wife would make him this big bowl of popcorn, he’d eat it and watch B-movies and then go to sleep, have these fever dreams and come up with inspiration for his stories. I didn’t know what he was talking about until I went down to visit him and his family. Thing was, she made the popcorn with lard! It was the heaviest thing, and you could not go to sleep without having these nightmares. Even in his diet, he’s searching for inspiration in the roots of the culture."

LIFE IN THE KING’S JUMPSUIT

The production started chugging forward when, on a recommendation from Raimi, Coscarelli snagged Campbell for the role of the goldenaged Elvis. It sees Campbell made up almost beyond recognition, and furthermore tackling a role that carries mucho baggage. Many an impersonator has slipped into the King’s blue suede shoes, but few actors could bring the role to life as Campbell has - balancing slapstick yuks with tender emoting, accurate imitation with his own original touches.

Campbell’s characteristically cavalier about the process. "It wasn’t really a challenge, because I’m not playing the Elvis people know. The Elvis I’m playing, nobody ever had a chance to see. He’s just an old man like any other, dealing with the mundane problems of old age, losing control of his bodily functions - at least, until the end, when he starts to get his mojo back and kicks the mummy’s ass.

"I didn’t pay much attention to the Elvis movies and all that stuff, the Elvis everyone knows. I think the thing that inspired me the most was a documentary that was made after Elvis died. They’d rounded up a bunch of his close associates, his entourage, and had them in the hotel room reminiscing about Elvis. The camera just went around the room as they talked about what he was like off stage, how he acted when the cameras weren’t on him. It was about the real Elvis - the Elvis who had left the building."

"I don’t know that anyone thought he was capable of giving a performance like that," says Coscarelli. "He’s so phenomenal. I got to see glimmers of that when I first met him about the part and he did a few little riffs about how he was going to play it. He hit this tone that’s engaging and funny and you just wanna watch him do this character more. Then, another thing that worked wonderfully was, that makeup process that he had to go through - two and a half hours it took to get him into the old-age Elvis look, then he was stuck in it. They talk about actors staying in character - he was forced to be that guy. He’d come shuffling down the hall on the way to the set going, ‘Hey baby, hey mama, how’s it going?’ It was just a transcendent performance."

PERSNICKETY NITPICKING

"Ossie, on the other hand just sorta turns it on and goes." Coscarelli means Ossie Davis, who plays the JFK role. Many will recognize the venerable Davis from his turns in numerous Spike Lee joints. But this is also the man who wrote and directed the soul-cinema classic Cotton Comes to Harlem, eulogized at the funerals of Rev. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and uttered the famous words "A mind is a terrible thing to waste" for the American Negro College Fund.

"He plays it so straight yet it’s so hilarious. He’s single-minded of purpose, he plays that character and believes he’s JFK. It’s just wonderful to watch. At the same time, there were the ridiculous moments. If you’ve seen Tim Burton’s Ed Wood movie, you’ll remember the part where Martin Landau, as Bela Lugosi, is bringing to life this giant fake octopus that’s on top of him. There was something similar in Bubba Ho-Tep where we shot a close-up in a park of Ossie with the rubber mummy on top of him. He’s fighting with this limp, rubber mummy, and he’s just putting so much heart and soul into it."

In Campbell’s opinion, Coscarelli put his heart and soul into Bubba Ho-Tep too. "He’s a real persnickety son-of-a-gun," says Campbell of the director. "To give you an idea, most film shoots operating with this kind of a budget will have a shooting schedule of about three weeks. Don said he needed six. A lot of directors are watching the clock. They finish a shot and go, ‘That’s fine, let’s wrap it up there.’ Not Don - he’s really finicky, nitpicking a lot, going, ‘Oh, could we try that again,’ or ‘Could we change this detail?’ He won’t stop till he’s got what he wants."

Now it’s the fans who won’t stop. Lured by the potent triumvirate of Lansdale, Coscarelli and Campbell, horror geeks and pop-trash freaks are raving all over the Internet about the film’s festival screenings.

"I’ve seen it at five or six screenings now, at festivals and so on," says Campbell, "and I’m starting to be able to predict exactly how people will react and when. I know now what scenes get the biggest laughs. I have a good feeling about this film - if it gets the chance to reach its audience, I think this is one that could make a bang!"

BUBBA HO-TEP SCREENS AT CONCORDIA’S HALL THEATRE (1455 DE MAISONNEUVE W.), THURSDAY, JULY 24, 9:30PM, AS PART OF FANTASIA