BUBBA HO-TEP(2003; w/d Don Coscarelli)

Opens w/ newsreel recovery of Amen Ho-Tep (unearthing of archetypal info from long-buried unconscious; "real" event 2B replayed in dream to follow), cut to Shady Rest Convalescence Home (tomb for similarly living-dead seniors, aka deathless memories rattling around rest-less mind) in Mud Creek (definitely not-the-Nile), TX, camera dollying down dark hall (mental passageway) to not-the-Pharaoh (+ not-The-King), Elvis (impersonator: dream-representation of intangible archtypal material; America’s own faux nobility, deceased), aka Sebastian Haff (transitional true i.d. 2B resolved/transcended); wakes up as coughing roommate dies (Elvis/SH his dead soul on way to transfiguration, engaged at start of drm), w/ "growth on his pecker" + no hard-on in yrs (country’s unregeneracy turning cancerous; its phallic proficiency, especially), narrating (film taking place in recently opened tomb-mind, soulsucking mummy own libido surviving past usefulness).

Old woman passes friend in iron lung (à la sarcophagus, mummy-breathing on sdtrk 1st link btwn He + Them) + makes off w/ her sweets (tin can à la lung à la hearse comically punctuating each death + foreboding Bubba-bearing bus; all allusive of Phantasm metal ball suggesting body/shell containing death), bitten by "cock-a-roach" scarab (repulsive phallus à la pun) which effectively grows giant/erect on squishing (actually, directs attention to rising mummy); Haff wakes (another pun: rest constantly disturbed by brewing un-rest, each time rousing into different layer of sleep [underscored by deaths/hearse]) to see her on floor in doorway (frequent perspective: glimpses onto covert psychic material trafficking thru unconscious corridors) begging for help (masculinity not only thing requiring rescue) before dragged away (chocolate-popping love of life which mummy/rest-home/life itself similarly drains off): cue 2nd comic death-cab (orderlies à la hh gregg commercial duo: punchline to life that it’s an absurd dialog on nothing, really).

Wakes again (film going thru various cycles of non-/REM sleep) to roomie’s daughter Callie going thru father’s drawers (mind rummaging own compartments for pertinent material) + thinks of own lost dtr (regenerative force); nurse reminds him of stage fall (asleep) that left him comatose 20 yrs (period of undisturbed rest - à la Amen Ho-Tep’s burial - while mind assimilates old mat’l, he sublimated complex ripened to maturity in subconscious) + he maintains he real Elvis having switched lives w/ Haff (shared love of drugs à la friends similarly "sucking him dry," mummy + hospital meds doing same: America faded into opiated complacency) after seeing him in Nacogdoches (oldest city in TX: ceremonious mtg w/t primal, core Self; also where TX Revolution began, drama replaying war w/ surrogate-Aztec mummy) + losing switchback contract in BBQ fire (Fustian bargain; pretending 2B pretender country's terminal Springsteenian pact w/ Average-Man mediocrity).

Visits John F Kennedy down hall (similarly delusional African-American, his TX assassination start of nation’s slide), who’s convinced (ex-TX Governor) LBJ trying to kill him (mummy resurrection of conspiracy theories when both battle unbelievable covert enemy on grounds of institution) – "Death ain’t gonna stop him!": libido not only thing that survives – then fights off scarab in room (attack by symbol of soul initiating battle for own, he also fending off img of self as "insect"); next morning nurse anoints "growth" (phallic potential salved/restored – by Afr-Am à la JFK, calling on trans-oceanic forces from deeper w/i same continent as menace [itself allegory for slavery conducted in both lands]) + he gets boner (resuscitated à la BHT, film valorizing male pwr while laying it to rest) while thinking of Callie ("given a dose of life again," she libido replacing dead man/father), whom he dreams about (slipping mind x-referencing her w/ dtr) that night in doorway (where previously appeared only shuffling oldsters + dying woman, especially, her "Daddy?" Haff’s incestuous regeneration of self).

Awakened by JFK (not daughter he thot, shaking him from dream of continued potency, she not-Callie/Cali for determinedly off-Hollywood filmmakers) w/ "It’s loose – listen" (psychic element unleashed, black man trad spirit-guide for white man, helping him tune in to instinctual-archetypal "soul"/Self), + led to bathroom (physical quality of adversary: the body + its wastes, of which body itself another) + hieroglyphiti ("Pharaoh gobbles donkey goobers" + "Cleopatra does the nasty" sophomoric antiestablishment swipes, both 2nd-childhood men’s frustration at limitations replaying oedipal boy's resentment), JFK admitting thing had mouth over his "asshole" (focus again on waste: add toilet/stall to list of pseudo-sarcophagi) to suck out his soul (ultimate offal, concentration on rear when any orifice will do fear of passive passing – not meeting death head-on); consult EVERYDAY MAN OR WMN’S BOOK O/T SOUL (not usual arcane text, simplistic title product of simple dreamer) + surmise mummy feeding on small souls (rip also on healthcare system, as any institution, exploiting the helpless) + digesting them "so they don’t exist anymore" (film parable of life cycle o/t spirit, graffiti where he shits them out again de-mystifying whole process [America's King + avatar similarly base at heart]).

Goes to JFK’s doorway (transition time) as lights blow out (mind short-circuiting on revelation of earthiness/mundanity of supposed evil + finality of life, bringing to end, also, 1st part of dream/inquiry) + Bubba stops in hall for eye contact (looking into abyss: moment of recognition/identification), prompting Haff to flash back to ancient Egyptian lobotomy (à la JFK, who sez parts of his brain replaced w/ sand: recollecting both loss/diminishing of consciousness on coming of sleep/death + archaic/archetypal dumbing by similarly priestly-religious institution – + subsequent filling of head w/ nonsense – acknowledged now by characters reduced to base body [their delusions meaning w/o illusions]) + bus going over TX bridge (mind leaving path for natural stream back to Source; bravura editing by Donald Milne + Scott J Gill); passes (Haff’s time, again, not yet), pursued by capgun "Kemosabe" (Lone Ranger America’s mythical ethical avenger + Marlboro-Man masculinity), who collapses of heart attack ("went down shooting" – blanks – eulogized for escaping w/ soul intact, ie still delusional, defending sanctity of own "Asshole! Asshole!" [his sixgun mantra]).

Next day, Haff turns on nurse (rejecting medicating/narcotizing agent of Institution, she humanized Nurse Ratched in hands of actress Ella Joyce), then investigates riverside + dream-bridge (place where mummy entered consciousness, junction btwn nature + civilization à la eponymous stetsoned menace itself), where he finds sunken bus (monster released during passage from one psychic location to another, investigation analysis regarding similarly submerged dream "transport"); returns to room (excursion outside the Mind gathering new info for next stage of drm) to "lube" his own "crankshaft" (attend to revitalization, inspired by Kemosabe’s show of phallic power), where JFK reports recon-naissance (from newspaper morgue, ha ha) on Bubba ("lesser" mummy – "King Tut’s brother" – à la wannabe detective/celebs themselves): touring US (again, à la El) + stolen in Reichian silver bus (final sarcophagus + body Haff’s roommate similarly thrown from) dumped in creek by tornado (psychic turmoil: emotional upheaval of death).

Haff + JFK draw BHT into open (while Jack sleeps: out of "darkest" unconscious), where motorized-wheelchair Haff (sleeping mind/body on automatic) sprays him w/ gasoline (zen turning of opponent [from oil-rich hemisphere]'s resources against him, whole film parable of Amer’ca dealing final blow to deathless Mideast [shades of burning oil wells] – last gasp before own demise) + ignites on his attacking JFK (Iraq revenge for assassination attempt on former president Bush père), whose dying act to give Words of Power to Haff (he story originator Joe R Lansdale to Haff’s Coscarelli, leaving latter to take project rest of way) which wd finish off Bubba, who revives + takes Haff down riverbank w/ him (fall into deeper stage of sleep, closer to unconsc stream) + KO’s him ("death" of hapless wannabe); revives + reignites mummy (re-turning dark fear into illumination, dead roommate [psychological bunkmate]’s bad-self resolved at brink of death), who expires in river (returned to Source from whence he emerged), Haff seeing hieroglyphics in stars (order/meaning in universe, ALL IS WELL replacing previous scatological messages as soul transcends vulgar body) + offering "Thankya – thankyaverymuch" w/ last breath (uniting w/ avatar persona à la corpse/stream) – dying, like Kemosabe, soul (integrity) intact. We shd hope for as much, as a country.

Kind of film Hollywood wd throw 12 writers + $90m at to get horribly, horribly wrong.