Thursday, August 18, 2011

Bucket of Blood!


According to "Wikipedia", Roger Corman's 1959 film Bucket of Blood is a "horror/comedy."  Well, the comedy must be so subtle that it completely flew over my head.  I mean, it is funny, if only for it's portrayal of Beatnik culture.  Wait, is this the intended comedy?  Am I that dense? (Yes.)  In any case, for a film shot in 5 DAYS (really), Bucket of Blood is pretty entertaining, or "Way out" as the Beat's would say.



If Andre from The Horror Digest hasn't seen this then she really must, because this may be the holy grail of cat trauma.  Nerdy, awkward busboy Walter Paisley dreams of being an artist.  Instead, he serves coffee to the hip in this coffee shop/bar where Poets and Sax players spout total nonsense and everyone smokes.  Walter is like the Mark Zuckerberg of his day:  no social skills but a genius!  One night, Walter accidentally kills his landlady's cat with a knife, as you do.  He covers it up by covering up kitty in clay, and takes it to the coffee shop the next day.  Everyone thinks he is a genius!  "Cat with knife sticking through it" is a big hit!  Because these people are all idiots and on horse!  Horse is slang for Heroin, the only thing I really learned from this film.


Walter, played by the awesome Dick Miller, decided to murder more things in order to make more sculptures.  Given that Walter is a class A idiot, the whole thing is actually kind of innocent and endearing.  I mean, you are actually rooting for Walter because he is putting one over on these Beatnik snobs!  Everything is going so well until Walter falls in love with the house watercolor artist.  Beatnik chicks ruin everything!

Roger Corman is the Man.  No doubt.  This film is great, even if I didn't catch the humor angle.  The whole thing was funny to me, but unintentionally so.  Is Corman a genius?  Yes. Duh.


4 comments:

Zelmarific said...

This sounds pretty good. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my dad about his childhood in Pennsylvania. I said,

"Grandma said your house was near this bar called the Bloody Bucket! I can't believe anyone would name a bar that! That's crazy!"

Dad: "What? Huh? There was no bar called the Bloody Bucket. No. I never heard of such a thing."

Later in the conversation...

Dad: "And then every time we would pass by The Bucket of Blood Bar I-"

Me; "Bucket of Blood! But you said there was no Bloody Bucket!"

Dad: "No, no. There wasn't! It was called, 'The Bucket of Blood.' Oh, yeah. Yeah. Everyone went there. Bucket of Blood."

Real Queen of Horror said...

I love this movie! I thought it was a very cool movie, although it was a comedy horror, it was still creepy.

I had no idea it was made in 5 days though! Awesome.

Jen said...

Roger Corman is such and amazing gonzo filmmaker!

b0b said...

The Bucket of Blood was what everyone called The Town Pump, on 18th and Mission in San Francisco. Yeah, Roger Corman is awesome. I loved his work for AIP when I was a kid, all of those Vincent Price/Edgar Allen Poe movies. Classic!