A Bucket of Blood is some vintage stuff right here, shot in black and white and produced in 1959 by movie cheese factor Roger Corman. The movie opens up in a strange beatnik bar where Walter the waiter is working. Walter wants to fit in with the 60’s hippy scene but isn’t making any real inroads. Unfortunately, Walter is a little on the socially awkward side. Anyway Walter is alone at home one night and his cat gets stuck in the crawlspace in his wall. In an attempt to cut the plaster board out inadvertently kills his cat. Walter is grief stricken of the loss of his cat and starts hearing voices. Anyway Walter decides to cover his cat in plaster and pass it off as an artwork for sale in an art shop. Walter feels like he’s part of the scene now!
Things progress and Walter is now popular and suddenly attractive to women. The only problem here is to keep the racket going. Walter finds himself in a position where he is framed for possessing heroin. Of course Walter being the simple folk that he is doesn’t even know what heroin is and gets busted and kills arresting officer. Walter gets the idea to turn the officers body into a work of art.
The art store owner where Walter is now selling his art work is “onto him” when he knocks over the plaster statue of the cat and discovers there is a dead cat underneath the plaster form. Obviously the art store owner is worried by this but the lure of the money he can make from Walter’s work keeps him playing the game. Walter’s star is rapidly rising but how long can he get away with what he’s doing? As the body count rises that is a question that can only be answered by watching the film!
Its easy to dismiss Corman’s Early work, but this one (along side “Little Shop of Horrors”) is actually really good. There’s a lot more detail than you’d think in this film and it is actually a really enjoyable watch if you can get your head around black and white films.
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