Best known as a character actor who popped up in many Joe Dante movies, Dick Miller didn’t get a lot of lead roles. For a rare example of his name on the top of the bill, we go to 1959’s A Bucket of Blood.

Walter Paisley (Miller) works as a busboy at a hipster café. Untalented and not too bright, he jealousy envies the smarts and skills of the location’s beatnik regulars.

When Walter accidentally kills his landlady’s cat, he covers the dead feline in plaster to hide the evidence. Walter passes this off as a sculpture and gains him praise as an artistic genius, a newfound status that prompts Walter to seek gruesome ways to satisfy the demand for new “art”.

Blood predates 1960’s more famous Little Shop of Horrors and can feel like a spiritual sibling. Both come with so many similarities that Shop almost comes across as a reworking of Bucket.

Okay, that might overstate matters, as the two demonstrate plenty of differences. Nonetheless, both films concentrate on nerdy dimwits who aspire to something better and luck into success via deadly methods.

Of the two, Bucket provides the more successful. Much of the credit comes from Miller.

While Jonathan Haze failed to bring much to his lead turn as Seymour in Shop, Miller proves much more engaging as Walter. He makes the role a bit dumb but not cartoonishly stupid.

Unlike the perpetually nebbishy Seymour, Miller’s Walter shows a darker side, as his newfound success causes him fewer qualms. Miller displays the character’s arc well.

Bucket lampoons the era’s hipster scene in an amusing manner as well. Although it doesn’t lean toward silly laughs, it pokes fun at these artists in an entertaining way, especially when Walter goes Full Beatnik.

Beyond the twist of the sculptor who literally kills for his art, Bucket doesn’t come with an especially creative plot. We know that the authorities will eventually come after Walter, a story beat that adds theoretical tension.

While this comes without surprises, Bucket nonetheless moves well and keeps us with it. At a mere 65 minutes, it never wears out its welcome, so it turns into a pretty enjoyable mix of satire, horror and comedy.

Footnote One: we 70s/80s kids remember Bert Convy as a game show host. He pops up in a small role here, a surprise for those of us who didn’t realize he maintained an acting career prior to all those TV contests.

Footnote Two: though the title implies essentially a slasher flick, the end product doesn’t fit that. Honestly, other than to imply a horror story, A Bucket of Blood does nothing to describe this movie.

A Bucket of Blood appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though watchable, the image seemed spotty.

Sharpness became one of the iffy elements, as the film never brought especially precise visuals. While the film displayed decent delineation most of the time, it also could seem too soft.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed fairly heavy and the movie also came with a mix of specks and marks.

Blacks leaned a bit crushed and dense, while shadows brought adequate clarity. This turned into a mediocre presentation.

Similar thoughts greeted the movie’s LPCM monaural soundtrack, as it felt dated but decent. Music lacked much range but also didn’t come with obvious problems.

Dialogue appeared thin but intelligible, while effects seemed tinny and a little rough at times. Some pops appeared along the way. Nothing about the audio impressed but the mix seemed adequate given the movie’s age and origins.

Among extras, we find a Mail Order VHS Version of Shop that spans one hour, seven minutes, 37 seconds. This looks predictably awful.

Why include this badly flawed presentation? Because so many people initially experienced Bucket on cheap videotapes, I guess this exists as nostalgia fodder.

Which seems fine, I suppose. However, I can’t imagine anyone will prefer to view the film that way so the VHS version becomes a gimmick more than anything else.

A Stills Gallery presents 27 frames that represent publicity images and covers from prior releases. Liner Notes includes a decent essay from Calvin Jennings.

Finally, a Roger Corman Trailer Reel that spans 53 minutes, 44 seconds and includes ads for Monster From the Ocean Floor, Five Guns West, Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes, Apache Woman, The Day the World Ended, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Not of This Earth, The Undead, Teenage Doll, Sorority Girl, War of the Satellites, Machine-Gun Kelly, The Brain Eaters, Beast from Haunted Cave, The Wasp Woman, A Bucket of Blood, Ski Troop Attack, Little Shop of Horrors, House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, Creature from the Haunted Sea, Battle Beyond the Sun, The Terror, Dementia 13, and Tomb of Ligeia. Though the quality of the clips tends to seem meh to bad, this still turns into a nice compilation.

A surprisingly lively look at an aspiring artist who resorts to murderous methods, A Bucket of Blood works pretty well. The movie melds genres in a positive way and enjoys a strong lead performance from Dick Miller. The Blu-ray comes with mediocre picture and audio as well as a minor mix of supplements. Roger Corman flicks tend to be spotty but this one turns into a winner.