Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis in “Bubba Ho-Tep" at the Last Picture House -- June 13.
VIP Experience w/ Joe Bog Briggs & Darcy the Mail Girl: Saturday, June 13, 5 p.m.
Standard Screening: Saturday, June 13, 7:15 & 8:15 p.m.
The Last Picture House, 325 East Second Street, Davenport IA
Hailed by Roger Ebert for its "delightful wackiness" the iconic film critic adding that the movie "has the damnedest ingratiating way of making us sit there and grin at its harebrained audacity," the cult classic Bubba Ho-Tep enjoys a trio of June 13 screenings at Davenport's The Last Picture house: two inside the theater, one on the rooftop, and the VIP Experience event featuring a meet-and-greet with the noted team of Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mail Girl.
A 2002 horror comedy written, co-produced, and directed by Don Coscarelli, Bubba Ho-Tep stars Bruce Campbell as Sebastian Haff, a man residing in a nursing home who claims to be the real Elvis Presley. The film also stars Ossie Davis as Jack, a black man who claims to be John F. "Jack" Kennedy, explaining that he was patched up after the assassination, dyed black, and abandoned. As the men become friends, they must team up to fight an ancient Egyptian mummy for the souls of their fellow residents, this profoundly silly yet surreptitiously profound movie resonating with deeper themes of aging, identity, mortality, and existentialism.
Coscarelli's Bubba Ho-Tep was based on the novella of the same title by Joe R. Lansdale, which originally appeared in the anthology The King Is Dead: Tales of Elvis Post-Mortem. Originally the film was "roadshowed" by the director across the country. With only 32 prints made and circulated around various film festivals, this unconventional release strategy garnered critical success, and the film went on to win the Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, meanwhile, wrote that "This absurdly clever caper is elevated by Bruce Campbell's pensive Elvis into a moving meditation on the diminutions of age and the vagaries of fame."
Appearing at Bubba Ho-Tep's 5 p.m. screening on June 13, Joe Bob Briggs is a nationally syndicated “drive-in movie critic” whose wisecracking take on exploitation and genre films was featured on two long-running late-night television shows; first on The Movie Channel and then on TNT. That tradition continues with his latest series The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, streaming on AMC/Shudder, where he and co-host and horror expert Darcy the Mail Girl break down genre films for legions of adoring fans. At 5 p.m., Joe Bob will introduce the film, plus he and Darcy will do meet-and-greets and merch sales in the lounge all night long. VIP ticket holders get the intro, the movie, plus a special Q&A with Joe Bob and Darcy. Don’t miss your chance to be part of this historic event. Davenport may never be the same.
Bubba Ho-Tep will also be shown inside the Davenport venue at 7:15 p.m. and on the rooftop at 8:15 p.m., and more information and tickets are available by visiting LastPictureHouse.com.
