American CinemathequePresents and Vitagraph Films have acquired US distribution rights to DonCoscarelli's comedy-horror film Bubba Ho-Tep which they will release in New York on Sept 26 andLos Angeles on Oct 2.

Bruce Campbell, who starredin Sam Raimi's seminal horror film The Evil Dead, stars as an elderly Elvis who drives out anEgyptian mummy from his nursing home.

Campbell's characteris assisted by a fellow patient who thinks he is John F Kennedy, played byactor-director Ossie Davis, whose credits include the Spike Lee dramas GetOn The Bus and Jungle Fever.

The film will be releasednationally starting with New York's Angelika Theatre and Los Angeles' NuArtTheatre. The distributors say negotiations are ongoing to secure multiplescreens in both cities.

Vitagraph re-released Quadrophenia in 2001 and its other pickups include Robert Schwenke's German thriller Tattoo and Takashi Miike's musical comedy-horror HappinessOf The Katakuris.

It teamed up with AmericanCinematheque Presents on the theatrical re-releases of Joe Massot's 1968psychedelic drama Wonderwall andJohn Carpenter's 1978 horror classic, Halloween.