We've all heard stories of Elvis working as a shelf-stacker in Tescos. Or manning the pumps at a filling station in Ohio. Or running a pub in North Yorkshire.

Yet the truth is that he's confined to bed in a ramshackle retirement home in Mud Creek, Texas, pondering what might have been.

Hoping to find a better life away from the media spotlight, The King (Campbell) switched identities with Elvis impersonator Sebastian Haff.

However, a barbecue accident destroyed the legal documents featuring a clause stating The King could reclaim his throne any time he wished.

Stuck in Mud Creek, the only succour he gets from his mundane existence is lascivious thoughts about the home's nurses and the daughter of a dead resident.

However, things shift up a gear when Elvis's co-residents begin dying in mysterious circumstances and the finger of blame is pointed at a 3,000-year-old Mummy.

Linking up with fellow resident Jack (Davis), an Afro-American whose convinced he's JFK ("they dyed me this colour"), Elvis can't leave the building till the mystery's solved.

This firmly occupies David Lynch territory and triumphs, largely thanks to the laconically deadpan delivery of Campbell as Elvis.

His dialogue casually drops The King's catchphrases into conversation and never, ever, is irony employed as a comic device.

Based on a short story by cult author Joe R Lansdale, director Don Coscarelli has produced a daft but compelling yarn a million miles away from the formula of standard Hollywood fare.

Who could resist a bout tag lined 'The King v The King of the Dead?

Tim Evans