By Forris Day Jr.
A Bucket of Blood was produced on a $50,000 budget, shot in five days and shares many of the low-budget filmmaking aesthetics for which director Roger Corman’s work is known. In it a dimwitted, impressionable young busboy (Dick Miller) works at a Bohemian café in southern California and is inspired by a beatnik artist’s poetry performance to try his hand at sculpture. While working, he accidentally kills his landlady’s cat and, in desperation, covers its body in clay to hide the evidence. When the suspiciously life-like figure earns him a reputation as a brilliant sculptor, he is pressured to create similar works.
A Bucket of Blood is a dark comedy but an enjoyable one to watch. The busboy’s first murder of a cat is quite accidental and humorous. Once everyone starts admiring his “sculpture” of the dead feline he feels driven to go out and create bigger and better pieces of artwork by finding new subjects. This is when some of the club customers where he works go missing. The whole club is amazed at how anatomically correct his sculptures are and his wave of success swells out of control and so does his appetite for murder.
It’s a quirky story of a serial killer’s discovery of himself that will have you grinning and gasping at the same time. “A Bucket of Blood” pokes fun at the beatnik lifestyle of the 50’s filled with bad artists and phony people. Presented in widescreen the quality of the transfer is flawless. It’s wonderful that this and many other films are being properly restored in their original format to be enjoyed for generations to come. I recommend this one wholeheartedly.
Rating: 7/10 – “A killer film”
