The strangest performance from a beloved ’90s icon is now available to stream for free

By Chris Snellgrove | Published 1 hour ago

Bruce Campbell is a genre king and has appeared in many films, but to film lovers he is still best known for his role evil Dead Franchise. If you’re like us, you find Campbell’s performances more addictive than a sugary soda from S-Mart and are always looking for more movies that feature his handsome, slightly rubbery face. If you’re ready to congratulate the king, here’s some good news: you can stream now Bubba Ho-TepCampbell’s strangest film, completely free on Tubi.

What the fuck is Bubba Ho-Tep around? Bruce Campbell plays an elderly man in a nursing home who claims to be the very much alive Elvis Presley. He teams up with Jack (played by Ossie Davis), a man claiming to be President John F. Kennedy who was cured and turned black after the assassination attempt. Together they must stop a resurrected and rampaging Egyptian mummy, which Campbell’s character jokingly calls “Bubba Ho-Tep.”

If reading this description made you feel like you were having a stroke, here’s a warning: that’s what it feels like watching the film from start to finish. The film begins with the crazy premise of a long-dead celebrity and a president teaming up to stop a different kind of evil death. As a genre fan, I loved that this film was stranger from the start Beginning than most films ever do, and with each scene it got deliciously weirder.

If you are a very literary nerd then the name Bubba Ho-Tep may sound familiar to you. That’s because it’s based on a novella of the same name by Joe R. Lansdale. The film is relatively faithful to the original in its adaptation. If you liked the novella, you’ll probably like the movie (and vice versa). It’s a solid story made even better by the inclusion of Bruce Campbell, who plays against type as an older rock star, even though he was only 44 at the time of the film’s release.

Speaking of which Bubba Ho-TepFor the film’s great story, it won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Screenplay, a very prestigious horror award. That’s because the film goes deeper than Bruce Campbell fighting the evil dead. It’s also about what it means to grow old and irrelevant and the lengths people will go to to feel like they still matter. It’s a poignant meditation on age and getting older, albeit in the form of a completely crazy horror comedy.

Bubba Ho-Tep wasn’t exactly a box office hit, grossing just $1.2 million on a $1 million budget. This was because the film was mainly shown at film festivals and not as a traditional world premiere. Despite this very limited distribution, it didn’t take long for the film to impress critics and audiences alike.

On rotten tomatoes, Bubba Ho-Tep has a critical rating of 78 percent and an audience rating of 79 percent. Critics generally praised how effortlessly the film blends bizarre and over-the-top comedy with sad and wistful nostalgia for lost youth and better days. With this film you get the best of both worlds: it’s a Bruce Campbell screwball horror comedy that might bring you to tears when you least expect it.

will Bubba Ho-Tep Make you laugh, cry or maybe a little of both? You won’t know until you stream it for free on Tubi. After this, you may never look at Bruce Campbell the same way again, and you can outdo all the so-called history experts around you by reminding them that Elvis and JFK didn’t die decades ago, but lived long enough to see the world to save from an evil mummy.

BUBBA HO-TEP REVIEW RATING