I always loved seeing Dick Miller (who sadly passed away this year) appear in cameos and small parts in movies, particularly those made by former protégés of Roger Corman (Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Joe Dante obviously, etc). I never realised that Miller was the lead of anything, namely the cult beatnik culture satire horror flick A Bucket Of Blood (1959) directed by Corman from a script by Charles B. Griffith (who also wrote the original Little Shop Of Horrors and Death Race 2000). Miller plays dim-bulb bus-boy Walter Paisley at the Yellow Door Cafe where hepcats drink coffee, perform poetry, play folk tunes and deal drugs (alongside a few undercover cops). When Walter accidentally kills his landlady’s cat and covers it in clay to dispose of the body, he offers it up as an art piece to the cafe’s greedy boss, which starts a buyers’ craze for Walter’s art unbeknownst to its murderous contents, particularly when Walter finds himself killing more people to produce further “pieces”. A very cheap, low budget movie that only clocks in around 66 minutes, coming off a bit like a cartoonish EC comics/Tales From The Crypt story. Funny, weird, and grotesque with an engaging performance from Miller (I also liked the barrel-chested Julian Burton as the pretentious poet Maxwell H. Block). I watched this on Kanopy but it’s a public domain cheapie you could also watch on YouTube.
VHS Tracking 