The first of Roger Corman’s black and white, black humor trilogy of horror films (the following two films being THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA), BUCKET OF BLOOD gets the “authorized” Blu-ray treatment from Olive Films.

Catering to the pompous windbags, aspiring musicians, painters and beat poets who frequent a Bohemian cafe in Southern California, dimwitted busboy Walter Paisley (Dick Miller, THE TERROR) has aspirations of being an artistic type and swooping pretty patron Carla (Barbara Mouris, THE WASP WOMAN) off her feet. In his one room apartment, Walter frustratingly molds a mountain of clay, not being able to sculpt a simple nose. At the same time, his landlord’s cat is stuck behind his wall, and when Walter attempts to free it by plunging his knife into the sheetrock; he kills it, freeing its stiff carcass with the sharp instrument still inside. Covering the dead animal with clay, Walter brings his creation to the coffeehouse, calling it “Dead Cat” to much fanfare, as now everyone is interested in his work and seeing more. Even his greedy boss Leonard (Antony Carbone, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM) sees the potential when a wealthy art collector (Bruno Ve Sota, THE GIANT LEECHES) offers a considerable amount of money for the macabre feline sculpture. When there’s demand for further works of arts, Walter hits a narcotics officer (Bert Convy, JENNIFER) over the head with the rim of a frying pan, covering him with clay for his latest masterpiece, “Dead Man”. Walter becomes something of a sensation, but his anxious fans want more sculptures and murder may be his only option if he intends to keep up the charade.

After Corman told frequent collaborator Charles Griffith he wanted to do a horror comedy, the screenwriter found inspiration from the coffeehouses they visited on the Sunset Strip. The resulting film, shot for $50,000 in five days, works well not only as a horror film with black comedy tossed in, but as a satirical time capsule piece centered around the beatnik culture of the era (even Allen Ginsberg is lampooned by actor Julian Burton, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH). Most of the humor is relegated to the beginning of the film, as there’s more of a macabre feel to the proceedings once Walter starts murdering and it takes the obvious bows to MYSTERY IN THE WAX MUSEUM and HOUSE OF WAX. Although Miller would become one of the most recognizable character actors of all time, this is his only real starring role, and he’s quite marvelous as the timid underdog who goes to insane measures to impress a girl. Miller was also offered the lead in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS but turned it down, feeling it was too similar to this one. He later regretted his decision (he did use the “Walter Paisley” character name in a number of later films for other directors, including THE HOWLING and CHOPPING MALL). The film runs a swift, enjoyable 66 minutes and features AIP regular Ed Nelson (THE BRAIN EATERS, NIGHT OF THE BLOOD MONSTER) and boasts the inviting novelty of seeing future game show host staple Convy as Walter’s first human victim.

In his autobiography How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime, Corman writes, “In the middle of 1959, when AIP wanted me to make a horror film but only had $50,000 available, I felt it was time to take a risk, do something fairly outrageous. I wanted to have fun and change the equation. I decided to do a horror-type film with a hip, cutting edge. I called Chuck and we decided to create a comedy-horror-satire about the trendy beat coffeehouse scene. For research we spent a long evening drifting in and out of coffeehouses along Sunset Strip. We kicked around story ideas as we wandered and by evening’s end, had a plot structure.” He continues, “The audience at the sneak laughed throughout the film and applauded at the end. I had made a successful comedy that also commented on the ambitions and pretensions of the art world. When a critic wrote that the art world was a metaphor for the movie world, I didn’t deny it”.

Although MGM still has “official” rights to the film, A BUCKET OF BLOOD has fallen into the public domain with a number of budget DVD releases abound over the years. A Blu-ray (BD-R) was recently released from The Film Detective utilized original 35mm elements. After just releasing the film again on DVD as licensed from MGM, Olive Films have answered fan outcry for them to do it on Blu-ray, and it has been given a new 4K restoration from the original negative, packaged as a fully-loaded edition under their “Olive Signature” line. The 1080p HD transfer has the film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and is by far the best it has ever looked on home video, with the black and white image being more than satisfying. There’s good gray scales, perfect shadow detail and plenty of depth, and black levels are nice and deep. Judging by the textures and the ample grain structure, no DNR or other blatant smoothing techniques have been applied, so the film has a nice organic, filmic appearance to it. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track is perfectly clear, with no detectable defects. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

The extras on this “Olive Signature” presentation are plentiful. There’s an audio commentary by Elijah Drenner, an absolute perfect choice since he directed the documentary, THAT GUY DICK MILLER. Drenner starts with such trivia about Corman’s “first truly great movie” as it being the bottom-half of a double-feature with ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES, that the single-take bits that make up the title sequence were edited in-camera, and that the cafe set was left over from Burt Topper’s DIARY OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRIDE. Drenner discusses the entire cast, composer Fred Katz (his score was re-used in THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS), cinematographer Jacques R. Marquette, set designer Daniel Haller, screenwriter Griffith, director Corman, and of course star Dick Miller, who continued to pay homage to his Walter Paisley character in numerous other movies throughout the years, including New World’s HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD. Drenner adds a number of quotes from the participants in (including some from his own interviews, such as with actress Judy Bamber, who plays Paisley’s figure model victim) and this is a tight and entertaining commentary.

“Creation Is. All Else is Not” (7:51) is a new interview with Corman, who talks about the financing the film, that he had total control over it, and his attentions of combining comedy and horror as sort of an experiment which happened to turn out successful. Corman believes that the success of the film was heavily due to Miller’s performance, as that he made the audience root for the little guy. “Call Me Paisley” (11:55) is a 2018 interview Dick Miller and his wife Lainie, shot some months before the actor passed away. A BUCKET OF BLOOD was made around the time that the couple met and got married, and here they reminisce about that period, including first meeting Corman. The cast of the film is discussed briefly, as is the actor’s long-term working relationship with Corman and the immortality of the Walter Paisley character. There’s an archival interview with the late Charles Griffith (20:09), where he recalls when he got into screenwriting and becoming connected to Corman. Not only is A BUCKET OF BLOOD discussed, but also such films he worked on for Corman like IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, TEENAGE DOLL, THE WILD ANGELS and LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. “Bits of Bucket” (7:14) is a visual essay comparing the original script to the finished film, describing scenes in Griffith’s shooting script (originally titled “The Yellow Door”) which were removed due to budget and/or time restraints, and this includes vocal reenactments of written dialogue. The essay by Caelum Vatnsdal (author of You Don't Know Me, But You Love Me: The Lives of Dick Miller), is viewable on the disc’s extras menu, as well as in a booklet included as an insert.