At the risk of stating the obvious, Bubba Ho-Tep is not your typical Hollywood film. From the first few moments, in which Elvis worries about a possibly cancerous growth on his "pecker," to the final battle between the mummy and a walker-wielding King in his trademark studded jumpsuit, it defies the very notion of traditional moviemaking.

The film rides heavily on Campbell's ability to sell his role as the elderly Elvis, which he accomplishes skillfully, in spite of a glaringly amateur makeup job. Though Davis neither acts nor sounds remotely like JFK, his true identity becomes irrelevant by the end of the film. Through the courage of their convictions, Campbell and Davis make the outrageous premise work. The audience believe because they believe.

Coscarelli (who directed the Phantasm series) spends a little too much time establishing the Elvis character and not enough time expanding the underdeveloped mummy aspect of the storyline. Most of the time, the plot shuffles along like the senior citizens around which it revolves, occasionally scurrying through a light action sequence, only to slow down shortly thereafter to catch its breath. The director does employ some interesting time-lapse tricks, however, which deftly illustrate the monotony of life in a nursing home.

On one level, the film can be seen as a condemnation of an age-ist society that callously banishes the elderly to managed-care facilities to avoid facing its own mortality. On another, it's a creepy dark comedy that takes its inspiration from the pages of the Weekly World News. Coscarelli takes his inspiration from a wide range of sources, including Elvis movies (to the extent of recreating nearly shot-for-shot a sequence from the concert film Elvis Live on Tour), horror, mysteries, even westerns, and blends them together into one indefinable but utterly enjoyable cinematic experience.