Starring: Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, Julian Burton, Ed Nelson Directed By: Roger Corman Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: DVD Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC Label: MGM (Video & DVD) Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: September 05, 2000 Running Time: 66 minutes Theatrical Release Date: October 21, 1959
Description: In a jumpin' java joint, filled to the brim with kooky beatniks, poets and hipsters, an artist wannabe discovers he has a talent for modern art...and murder. Dripping with blood, social satire and "sick, sick comedy" (The Film Daily) this film, according to critic Leonard Maltin, "nicely captures the spirit of the beatnik era" and zips along with vibes of counterculture creepiness.Walter (Dick Miller) is a busboy overly impressed with the cool cats who hang out at The Yellow Doorcoffee house, and he wonders how to become "hip." When he accidentally kills his landlady's pet cat, Walter panics and covers it with clay. His prayers are answered, and before he knows it he's the "cat's meow" of the art world. His talent develops and - surprise! - he can sculpt humans the same way too. Like so many artists, his real talent won't be discovered - until he's dead.
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
GET THE MGM VERSION - ALL OTHERS NOT WORTH IT "A Bucket of Blood" is not one of my favorite Roger Corman films and it has been passed around to various public domain companies for years. The MGM version is the one to get and an official release with the best picture quality. Don't be discouraged if it isn't widescreen as seen on TCM. This was filmed in 1.37 to be played in 1.66 ratio. What you get here is an open matte version meaning you see the entire scene shot by the camera before a mask is added to make it widescreen cutting the top and bottom for theater screen showings. This is NOT the same as Pan & Scan v. Widescreen. In fact, some releases done this way will find microphone booms at the top of the screen which would be hidden with the mask later on. You actually get more picture here rather than less :-)
The MGM DVD is still available so there is no reason to buy cheaper quality versions especially if you are a Corman fan.
A Humorous Bucket Walter (Character actor and Veteran Roger Corman regular Dick Smith) ,a nerdish painter who waits tables at a beatnik cafe, is jealous of the popularity of its various artistic regulars. He kills his landlady's cat by accident . Then he glosses the body in plaster to hide the missing cat. Many acclaimed as a brilliant sculptor. Many so called friends/enemies want to see more of his work.. Walter has to resort to similar methods to produce new pieces with mixed results .
Directed on a low budget by Roger Corman, it works and has a sense of humor with its horror. Its satire sit bites 48 years later. It does a bloodless horror that still thrills
This film is similar to House of Wax and the future Corman film, the cult classic, The Little Shop of Horrors. The beatnik reference makes this movie a cult classic of the early 1960's (made in 1959-GAWD it is as old as I am) as well as "Horror", but it was not as well received
so get it and enjoy this campy horror film
Bennet Pomerantz, AUDIOWORLD
A Pristine Print of a Corman Cult Classic. "A Bucket of Blood" has always been one of Roger Corman's most entertaining exploitation films, with excellent performances all around (especially those of Dick Miller and Barboura Morris). The script is literate, and the direction is much better than in many other Corman "cheapies". My only caveat is that the "statues" that were used in the film are so amateurish-looking that it's hard to believe all of the praise heaped upon them by the characters in the script--particularly the comment that they are so "lifelike" (the statues are also obviously much too slim and lightweight to be what they actually are supposed to be). Despite this minor nit-pick, this is still a great print of a great Corman classic, and highly recommended!
Little Bucket Shop Of Blood Horrors After watching "A Bucket Of Blood" (1959), I have come to the conclusion that it is an earlier, bloodier variation of the movie "The Little Shop Of Horrors" (1960). Both movies were written by Charles B. Griffith. Both movies were directed by Roger Corman. In addition, several of the actors appear in both films. For example, John Shaner appeared as a beatnik named Oscar in "A Bucket Of Blood," and played the dentist Dr. Phoebus Farb in "The Little Shop Of Horrors." In "A Bucket Of Blood," Dick Miller plays Walter Paisley, a nerdish waiter at a Bohemian cafe. In "The Little Shop Of Horrors," Jonathan Haze plays Seymour Krelboyne, a nerdish worker at a flower shop. After accidentally killing his landlady's cat and covering the body in plaster, Walter is acclaimed as a brilliant sculptor. After cross breeding flowers, and accidentally creating a hybrid plant, Seymour is acclaimed as a brilliant horticulturalist. Lacking any artistic talent whatsoever, Walter has to kill people and cover them in clay to create new statues. Because the plant is a carnivore, Seymour accidentally kills people and feeds them to his plant, making the plant grow to gargantuan size. Walter's boss finds out about what's going on, but doesn't tell the police, because of the money and notoriety it generates for the coffee house. Seymour's boss finds out about what's going on but doesn't tell the police, because of the money and notoriety it generates for the flower shop. After everyone realizes what's really going on, the police chase Walter. The movie ends when Walter hangs himself before the police catch and arrest him. After everyone realizes what's really going on, the police chase Seymour. The movie ends when Seymour is devoured by the giant plant before the police catch and arrest him. Because the violence is deliberate and the ending shocking and depressing, "A Bucket Of Blood" is one of the more obscure Roger Corman movies. Because the violence is accidental and the ending is played for laughs, "The Little Shop Of Horrors" is fondly remembered as one of Roger Corman's best movies.
Excellent Horror Comedy Flick A Bucket of Blood is a wonderful horror comedy. It stars veteran character actor Dick Miller as Walter Paisley who works as a waiter/busboy at a trendy coffeehouse. He has to put up with the restaurant's clientele who are mostly pretentious artsy types who think that they are all better than the rest of us. The leader of these pretentious poets is one Maxwell H. Brock (Julian Burton) whose free verse poetry is a hilarious send up of the drivel that was being widely published in poetry journals at the time.
Walter Paisley is a naive character who desperately wants to be accepted as an artist by the coffeehouse crowd. Adding to his feelings of being excluded from the group is the fact that he is hopelessly attracted to the lovely Carla (Barboura Morris). Another problem facing Walter is that his boss constantly hassles him and his landlady is a control freak who lords over her boarders. Clearly, Walter Paisley's life is at a dead end.
Then, all of a sudden, a freak accident combined with artistic inspiration occurs to turn Paisley's life around. What happened was that in one of the funniest sequences ever captured in a horror comedy, Walter Paisley accidentally kills his landlady's cat. While pondering over just what he should do about this turn in affairs, Paisley gets the inspiration to put clay over both the cat and the protruding knife and by doing so, he turns the dead feline into a statue that he calls, appropriately enough, "Dead Cat."
"Dead Cat" turns into a hit amongst the artistically pretentious crowd. All of the coffeehouse regulars including both the stuffy Maxwell and the lovely Carla are turned on by it and they come to really dig Walter. Even Walter's boss starts to show respect for him. Clearly, Walter Paisley's star is going up. However, to maintain this forward momentum and prevent him from drifting back into the loneliness and obscurity that he had spent his previous existence in, Walter finds that he must create more such masterpieces. To do so, he needs to go from accidentally causing death to doing so on purpose.
A Bucket of Blood is more than just a horror comedy. It is a satire on the whole artistically pretentious crowd that one finds in every college town. This movie also has a nice jazz styling reminiscent of the whole cool jazz scene that one often associates with the late 1950's and the early 1960's. A Bucket of Blood is a good flick that deserves your attention.
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