Label: Olive Signature
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 66 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Roger Corman
Cast: Dick Miller, Bery Convey, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, Ed Nelson
In Roger Corman's horror-comedy A Bucket of Blood (1959) we have Walter Paisley (Dick Miller, Gremlins) a busboy at the Yellow Door Café, where hep-cat beatnik art-snobs gather to fellate themselves over their beat poetry and artistic endeavors. Walter dreams of being a great artist himself one day, but his lack of actual talent makes him a bit of a joke among the in-crowd.
One night while trying to free a cat from inside his apartment wall Walter accidentally stabs the feline with a steak-knife, and while he's a bit slow he knows a good opportunity when he sees one. He takes the cats corpse and covers it modeling clay - with knife still in it - presenting it to the espresso-slurping beatniks at the coffee house who immediately hail his macabre creation as a work of artistic genius!
Craving further accolades by his new found art-world peers Walter struggles to find a new subject, resorting to murdering people and encasing them in clay, which seems to work just fine. The beatniks love his macabre sculptures, even the girl of his dreams, coffee house hostess Carla (Barboura Morris, The Trip), but things begin to fall apart for the gruesome sculptor when the truth of his morbid sculptures is eventually revealed.
Roger Corman's film, written by Charles B, Griffith (Death Race 2000), is a fun time, a horror-comedy lampooning of the beatnik culture of the day, wittily written and played deliciously straight this is a satire that still works even today, it taps into something with legs. Character actor Dick Miller (The Howling) didn't get many starring roles, though he had tons of memorable one, and this rare lead was his meatiest lead. The late Miller is wonderful playing the sympathetic yet ultimately villainous
dimwitted hanger-on who wants so bad to be part of the in-crowd, and when he accidentally falls into it's good graces he's willing to do just about anything to stay in favor.
Audio/Video: A Bucket of Blood *1859) arrives on Blu-ray from Olive Films Signature imprint, framed in 1.85:1 widescreen in 1080p HD. This is sourced from a new 4K scan from unspecified elements, looking absolutely solid, it's a bit darker with deeper blacks, film grain is more present, and contrast is significantly improved throughout.
Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA Mono 2.0 with optional English subtitles. Everything sounds crisp and clean, there are no issues with hiss or distortion I could pick-up on, though it does sound it's vintage, there's not a lot of depth but the score from Fred Katz (The Wasp Woman) sounds terrific.
Last year Olive Films released a bare-bones DVD version of the film, so I was a bit surprised when they announced a new extras-laden special edition of the film to be released on their Signature imprint, not unlike what they did with The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. First up we get an audio commentary from Elijah Dreener, director of the 'That Guy Dick Miller' documentary, who deep dives into the film and the career of Dick Miller, touching on the cast and crew both in front of the camera and behind. Also touching on the filming techniques and all sorts of production trivia. If you're a fan of the film this is the sort of track that is essential viewing.
We also get a 7-min interview with legendary director Roger Corman speaking about the making of the film, plus a 12-min interview with the late Dick Miller and his Lainie Miller, with the pair recalling how they were married around the time of the film, working with Corman and the history of the Walter Paisley character in his filmography.
We also get an archival audio interview with screenwriter Charles B. Griffin who speaks about the film and several others he worked on with Roger Corman. There's also a 7-min video essay comparing the original script to the finished film, noting scenes that didn't make the cut.
A nifty extra is a rare German prologue for the film that runs about 10-min long, a strange bit added on by the German distributor so they could market this s a sequel to House of Wax! There's also a rough-looking silent super-8 digest version of the film that runs about 8-min. Extras on the disc are buttoned-up with a pair of 2-min theatrical trailers, and a 5-min gallery of newly-discovered on-set photography with narration by Elijah Drenner.
The single-disc release arrives in a clear Blu-ray keepcase with a cool-looking sleeve of artwork, which looks to be a new illustration, though I could not find a credit for the artist. The inside of the wrap features a red-tinted scene from the film with the disc itself featuring a motif borrowed from the new illustration. As part of the Olive Signature series the film also get a slipbox featuring the same artwork, and an 8-page collector's booklet with a new essay on the film from Caelum Vatnsdal,
author of 'You Don't Know Me, But You Love Me: The Lives Of Dick Miller'. He describes the film as the sturdy, quieter older brother to Corman's Little Shop of Horrors, which is basically a retread of this film, then going into the myriad of adaptations of the film through the years. The booklet also features stills from the film.
Special Features:
- “Creation Is. All Else is Not” – Roger Corman on A Bucket of Blood (8 min)
- “Call Me Paisley” – Dick and Lainie Miller on A Bucket of Blood (12 min)
- Audio commentary by Elijah Drenner, director of That Guy Dick Miller
- Archival audio interview with screenwriter Charles B. Griffith (20 min)
- “Bits of Bucket” – Visual essay comparing the original script to the finished film (7 min)
- 8-Page Collector's Booklet with Essay by Caelum Vatnsdal, author of You Don't Know Me, But You Love Me: The Lives of Dick Miller
- Rare Prologue from German Release (10 min)
- Super 8 “digest” version (8 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
- German Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
- Gallery of newly-discovered on-set photography (5 min)
A Bucket of Blood (1959) is a fun lampooning of beatnik culture, starring the beloved character actor Dick Miller in his only starring role, which immediately makes this a must-own for me. I love that we finally have a version of the film on Blu-ray that is dripping with cool extras with some sweet packaging, this is on par with Olive Signature's excellent release of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, so get it before it gone.
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