Folklore doesn’t stop just because we’re living in a world of iPhones and satnavs. It just changes form. Once upon a time we told stories about giants and Jack-in-the-Green. Now we tell stories about people giant on the celebrity circuit, like Elvis, and archetypal figures like Jack Kennedy. Both of them feature — or do they? — in the low-budget movie Bubba Ho-Tep.

Bruce Campbell stars as Elvis Presley, who’s come to reside at an East Texas nursing home after swapping places with one of his own impersonators to have some more fun in life. Which works until he falls off stage and needs to convalesce somewhere after breaking his hip. Stuck there with a growth on his dick and wasting away through being surrounded by infirm people and treated like an imbecile, it looks like the King is on his way out — until a soul-sucking mummy starts offing residents of the home.

It’s John F Kennedy who alerts Elvis to the mummy’s existence. He finds it hard to believe at first, what with this JFK being black, but when actor Ossie Davis explains that he was dyed and his brain replaced with sand by enemies unknown, his current condition almost makes sense.

So, Presley and JFK unite to bring the Egyptian spectre down. Only, Kennedy buzzes round in an electric wheelchair, and Presley has a walking frame, and neither is as strong or spritely as in their heyday. But the challenge boosts their confidence, and they find the pep necessary to keep them going.

All this takes a while to accomplish, mind. I’ve zipped through the plot of the story there but the delight of the film is the way it portrays nursing home life, which is paced slowly. The rhythm of the film is dictated by the deaths of the patients there, whose bodies are picked up by a pair of morticians who aren’t cut out for the job. And the joy of the story is its sheer nonsense, beautifully executed through Campbell’s fabulous performance as Presley, and the deadpan hilarity of the script.

Written and directed by Don Coscarelli, based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale, it’s a film that makes the most of its meagre resources. The majority of the film is shot in a nursing home, but the quality of the dialogue and performances, and interesting lighting and editing choices, make you forget how low budget this film is, and instead just simply bask in the surreal world it creates, soaking up every delicious detail.

Yes, it’s nonsense. And it’s not for everyone — you’ll know by now whether Bubba Ho-Tep appeals to you or leaves you cold. And that’s fine. One thing that’s important with low budget films in particular is to realise you’re not making a film for everyone. Forget it. You’ll never have the marketing resources to create a Spielberg style splash at the box office. But by creating something of quality and distinction, you can craft a film that will create its own audience through word of mouth. Exactly what’s happened in the case of this cult movie, which there’s talk of a sequel to seven years after this first exciting installment.

And, if you’re looking to create a low budget success yourself, creating a story that draws on contemporary folklore might be an interesting way in. The number of times Princess Diana continues to pop up in the media after her death, the ongoing soap that is the (former) relationship of Peter Andre and Jordan, continued attention given to bad boy Lottery winners…all these threads have some kind of currency within the popular imagination, and I’d rather make a film drawing on those elements than concoct another mockney gangster film. I’m just sayin’…