Something of a cult classic, A Bucket of Blood is a quirky sort of horror movie that lives very much in the time it was released. Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) is a put-upon bus boy at one of the hippest, most Bohemian coffee shops around. He’s both surrounded by and completely dismissed by a group of musicians, poets, and artists on a daily basis, and he wants nothing more than to be accepted by them and respected as some sort of visionary. His chance comes when, after accidentally killing his cat, he covers it in clay and passes it of as a sculpture. Suddenly he’s the talk of the town and on a slippery slope that leads to more murders, this time of people. After that, well, there’s really no after that. This isn’t that long of a movie. Eventually Paisley gets found out, there’s a small chase, and then the finale. Miller is pretty good in the role and somehow makes a goofy, creepy character a relatable enough protagonist even when he’s killing people. Getting a look at some older work from a character actor I like was really the only thing I enjoyed about this movie though. His killing people and then covering them in clay bit is too stupid to be taken seriously, but not over the top enough to work as humor. And there’s almost no blood in this movie to speak of, let alone a bucket. What a jip.
