Bubba And The Cosmic Blood-Suckers!

The movie Bubba Ho-Tep by director Don Coscarelli starring Bruce Campbell and the late Ossie Davis is among my favorite movies. As a bit of a probable joke it ends with the announcement of a possible sequel Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires. There was some hubbub about a sequel but it came for naught and that's likely a good thing. Bubba Ho-Tep is a gem and to add to its universe is a problematic activity as the novel  Bubba and the Cosmic Blood-Suckers by Joe Lansdale demonstrates. Lansdale wrote the remarkable long short story (novella?) which inspired the movie and was encouraged to give the world more of his remarkable interpretation of Elvis Presley. 

Alas while I found the novel diverting and full of the typical Lansdale hijinks full of piss, vinegar and pungent death and sex, I found the whole far less satisfying than the sum of its many many parts. And it's those myriad parts which overwhelm this story for me. We get multiple perspectives in the story -- Elvis himself in his relative prime before his identity switch with imitator Sebastian Haff, one of his roadies named Johnny who carries much of the story as well as other asides and references. The story of course has the advertised "cosmic blood-suckers" which in a Lovecraftian way are hard to visualize. They seem more mood than menace sometimes, even when they are engaged with the small cadre of spook fighters employed by Colonel Tom Parker. It's a Parker who leads a secret operation which protects the world from ghosties and ghoulies and other assorted supernatural threats. He does so from his paddle-wheeler manned by zombies and assisted by blind psychics, sexy house ghosts, hammer-wielding tall tales, and others with a special "charisma" to battle evil. That's Elvis and he is the "Hellboy" of this particular version of the "BPRD". Much of the book is take up with the battle against the vampires and it's paced in a breakneck way. 

This ain't a bad book at all, but when compared to the yarn that inspired it, it falls far short in terms of import and theme. Bubba Ho-Tep is a magnificent reflection on mortality and plays with reality itself to drive home its points in a particular effective way. Bubba and the Cosmic Blood-Suckers is a rockem' sockem' misadventure which has more fury than feeling and while its diverting it ain't compellng, not even a bit. I'm not sorry I read it, but I don't think I needed it either. 

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