A BUCKET OF BLOOD

A Bucket Of Blood Movie Review

Server/busboy Walter (Dick Miller, Chopping Mall, Gremlins), a simple-minded man, wants nothing more than to fit in with the artsy beatniks he takes care of every day. Side note--if you don't know what a beatnik is, here's a quick summary--Jack Kerouac wrote a literary masterpiece titled On The Road. In it (and often before it was even published), Kerouac described being a part of a "Beat Generation" (he had lifted the term "beat" from a pal), and when his book was published, it inspired thousands of young people to change the way they lived life. That book impacted many lives and changed the way young people of the 1950's thought about many things (it did the same for me when I read it in the early 1990's), but it also spawned a lot of people who didn't quite get it, but wanted to fit into this new counterculture. "Beatnik" is the term that was thrust upon these young folks. They hung out at coffee shops, read poetry, listened to jazz music, drank alcohol and did drugs--essentially, the kids were either trying to be like Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty (the two lead characters in On The Road) or they were trying to be like the kids trying to be like Sal and Dean.

Now go buy this book!

Getting back on track--Walter has no artistic talent at all, but after accidentally killing a cat, he plasters the feline and claims he sculpted it. The beatniks, not knowing there's an actual cat inside, love the artwork, and happy to finally be accepted, Walter continues with his disturbing work, eventually killing people to be used as his latest pieces of art.

This one kind of deserves it

Schlockmaster Roger Corman directed this 1959 film that blends horror and comedy, and pulls both off nicely. Miller, who we all know and love as a bit character actor (and who looks almost the same at 30 in this film as he did 25 years later in the movies you probably know him from), is absolutely phenomenal in this movie--honestly, his performance is so so impressive it makes it easy to overlook many of the shortcomings in the film. Miller makes the character very sympathetic for most of the film, but also portrays Walter as insane just as well. The supporting cast is also impressive, but this is definitely Miller's movie. The dialogue is very witty at times, unnerving at others. One could talk about the underlying issue of some peoples' desire to fit in and be accepted, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole. At just 66 minutes, A Bucket of Blood is tragically short, and the climax of the film felt rushed, though the final scene is quite sad (even with the final, cheesy line). There's nothing terribly groundbreaking about this movie, but it is worth watching for, if nothing else, Dick Miller's spectacular performance.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 7

A Bucket Of Blood Movie Trailer