A Bucket Of Blood (1959) - Full Length

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• published: 06 Dec 2011
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http://HorrorVintage.com A Bucket of Blood is a 1959 American comedy horror film directed by Roger Corman. It starred Dick Miller and was set in beatnik culture. The film, produced on a $50,000 budget, was shot in five days, and shares many of the low-budget filmmaking aesthetics commonly associated with Corman's work. Written by Charles B. Griffith, the film is a dark comic satire about a socially awkward young busboy at a Bohemian café who is acclaimed as a brilliant sculptor when he accidentally kills his landlady's cat and covers its body in clay to hide the evidence. When he is pressured to create similar work, he becomes murderous.A Bucket of Blood was the first of three collaborations between Corman and Griffith in the comedy genre, followed by The Little Shop of Horrors and Creature from the Haunted Sea. Corman had made no previous attempt at the genre, although past and future Corman productions in other genres incorporated comedic elements. The film works as a satire not only of Corman's own films, but also of the art world and teen films of the 1950s. The film is noted as well in many circles as an honest, undiscriminating portrayal of the many facets of Beatnik culture, including art, dance and style of living. The plot has similarities to Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). However, by setting the story in the Beat milieu of 1950s Southern California, Corman creates an entirely different mood from the earlier film.A Bucket of Blood was remade in 1995 as a made-for-television film for the Showtime network. The character name of Walter Paisley has been adapted by actor Dick Miller as an in-joke in productions such as The Howling and Shake, Rattle and Rock!, which credit otherwise unrelated characters played by Miller under the character name.In the middle of 1959, American International Pictures approached Roger Corman to direct a horror film, but only gave Corman a $50,000 budget, and a five-day shooting schedule. Corman accepted the challenge, but was uninterested in producing a straightfoward horror film. Corman and screenwriter Charles B. Griffith developed the idea for producing a satirical black comedy horror film about the beatnik culture.[8] Corman and Griffith proceeded to research the film at various coffeehouses along the Sunset Strip, developing the film's plot structure by the evening's end, partially basing the film's story upon Mystery of the Wax Museum.The film was shot under the title The Living Dead. According to actor Antony Carbone, "[The production] had a kind of spirit of 'having fun,' and I think [Corman] realized that while making the film. And I feel it helped him in other films he made, like [The Little Shop of Horrors]—he carried that Bucket of Blood 'idea' into that next film." Actor Dick Miller was unhappy with the film's low production values. Miller is quoted by Beverly Gray as stating that "If they'd had more money to put into the production so we didn't have to use mannequins for the statues, if we didn't have to shoot the last scene with me hanging with just some gray makeup on because they didn't have time to put the plaster on me, this could have been a very classic little film. The story was good, the acting was good, the humor in it was good, the timing was right, everything about it was right—-but they didn't have any money for production values, and it suffered."American International Pictures' theatrical marketing campaign emphasized the comedic aspects of the film's plot, proclaiming that the audience would be "sick, sick, sick—from laughing!" The film's poster consists of a series of comic strip panels humorously hinting at the film's horror content. When Corman found that the film "worked well," he continued to direct two more comedic films scripted by Griffith, The Little Shop of Horrors, a farce, and Creature from the Haunted Sea, a parody of the monster movie genre.