A Bucket of Blood

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Product Details

Director : Roger Corman
Actor : Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, Julian Burton, Ed Nelson
Format : Import, NTSC
Binding : VHS Tape
EAN : 9780792845546
Product Group : Video
Release Date : 2000-06-06
UPC : 027616826732

ASIN : 0792845544

Editorial Reviews

From Amazon.com

The great Roger Corman produced and directed this cheerfully gory skewering of beatniks and the arts community. Dick Miller plays Walter Paisley, a no-talent busboy who idolizes the artsy types who frequent the coffeehouse where he works. When Walter accidentally kills his landlady's cat, he tries to hide the crime by covering the kitty in clay, and is soon hailed as a sculpting genius. Sure enough, the fickle arts community begins clamoring for some larger work. As a horror movie, A Bucket of Blood is merely okay, but it's great as a little black comedy. Corman works in some nice gruesome touches, such as backing up Walter's Big Emotional Moment with a steady drizzle of blood from a victim's arm. Most of the jokes aimed at the artists' pretensions still seem fresh: When offering Walter some breakfast, Maxwell announces that they're having "soy and wheat-germ pancakes, organic guava nectar, calcium lactate and tomato juice and garbanzo omelettes sprinkled with smoked yeast." The free-verse parodies are also very funny. Don't expect Bucket of Blood to keep you up with nightmares, but do sit back and prepare to enjoy a refreshingly sick sense of humor. --Ali Davis

Customer Reviews

Murder As Art... (2004-07-15)

Poor Walter Paisley (Dick Mlller). No one notices him in his dead-end job as busboy at The Yellow Door coffeehouse. Day after day he watches and listens as beat poets and musicians get all the attention and accolades. Then, one day, Walter accidentally kills his landlady's cat, covers it in clay, and -presto!- a new artistic master is born! Soon, the beatniks are at Walter's feet, begging for further expressions of his genius. Walter knocks a cop (Bert Convy) in the noggin with a skillet, turns him into a statue, and has another masterwork to show off! Unfortunately, this begins taking a toll on Walter's mind, turning him into just another pseudo-intellectual, elitist snob like the ones he'd once envied. Of course, Walter is also a serial killer, using his victims as the guts of his "art". BUCKET OF BLOOD is a hysterical look at the beat generation. It lampoons just about every type of beatnik pomposity. Roger Corman's sense of humor shines through every scene! This would be a perfect double bill with LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS or THE BLOODY BROOD. Highly recommended...

Will YOU join his human museum? (2004-02-24)

Dick Miller, one of the more popular character actors in Hollywood, whom I remember most from such movies as Gremlins (1984), Matinee (1993), and Demon Knight (1995) stars in this Roger Corman classic from 1959.

Miller is Walter Paisley, a simple-minded man with high aspirations who works in a beatnik coffee shop, The Yellow Door, as a busboy. He desperately wants to fit in, but finds himself usually the butt of jokes from some of the more pretentious bohemian crowd. The main reason for Walter's desire to be in the 'in crowd' is Carla, played by Barboura Morris, who I just saw in another Corman movie, The Wasp Woman (1960). Carla also works at The Yellow Door, and is really the only one that treats Walter with respect and kindness.

One night while at home, Walter is struggling with some clay, trying to create a bust of Carla, but his efforts are in vain. After accidentally killing his landlord's cat with a knife, Walter tries to hide what he did by covering the cat, and the protruding knife, with clay and inadvertently creates his first work of art, aptly titled 'Dead Cat'. Walter soon gains acclaim for his sculpture, and his career as an artist is born. The pressure of coming up with new pieces leads him to use human models creating grisly, realistic, highly detailed sculptures of figures in death throes. Soon Walter becomes the talk of the community, with fame and fortune sure to follow...or does it?

I really enjoyed this movie, which is basically an update of one of my favorite movies, House of Wax (1953) starring Vincent Price. The beatnik angle played nicely off the more gruesome elements of the movie, providing levity in this dark psuedo comedy. What I really liked was the beatniks were shown in different fashion, some being played for comedic effect, while others being played a little more seriously. There wasn't a sense of trivializing the movement, but more of poking a little fun at it. Some other actors I recognized were Ed Nelson, whom I recently saw in Night of the Blood Beast (1958) and perennial 70's TV favorite and host of many a game show, Bert Convy, looking so very young I almost didn't recognize him. Along with Dick Miller's performance, I also really enjoyed the barrel-chested beat poet character Maxwell H. Brock, played by Julian Burton. He delivers some truly interesting poetry in eloquent fashion.

The film has a short run time, at 66 minutes, which tended to keep the pacing snappy. Corman really shows why, even though his movie may have been made cheaply, they didn't always have to look cheap, with his professional direction and ability to keep things interesting by drawing out great performances from his actors. The case does mention a trailer for A Bucket of Blood included, but I found none. What I did find was an excellent copy of the film on this DVD, well worth getting if you enjoy black humor.

Cookieman108

To be watched under influence! (2003-06-22)

An interesting flick from the vast outpour of cheapies by the mastermind moviemaker Corman. If you love Corman for the 10 Poe adaptions he made between 1960 and 1965, you might be disappointed, because this one is quite far from the Gothic beauty he created later. A beatnik artist's society is quite well portrayed and the film is definitely worth a watch, but you might want to buy the Roger Corman retrospective, vol 1 instead - you'll get two more flicks and that's always good!

American International strikes again (2002-07-22)

This is ok as a drive in movie and that is about it. I did like the beatnik atmosphere, the nerdy performance by the lead actor, and the sarcastic portrayal of this phony art crowd but the film is basically a one idea, three set movie that could only work as the second film on a double bill. When American International had a wildly exploitive script (like the superior "Wild in the streets"), they could do some interesting films but most of their output was kitsch or schlock. This is in the latter category.

Beatniks trump horror (2002-04-28)

As a horror film it's a complete failure, but as a satire of the beatnik area and its artistic pretensions it's a classic. Too bad it wasn't shot in the lurid Technicolor of that era instead of b&w. Sticking Vincent Price somewhere in the movie would have been a nice touch, too. Oh, there were such possibilities here. Still, for a film that looks as if it was shot in three days ...it's pretty good.

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