A Bucket Of Blood / The Giant Gilla Monster (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	Hilarious and, in 'Bucket of Blood', often even witty at times
Disadvantages:	None really, if the films are taken in the spirit intended

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

BUCKET OF BLOOD

Starring:

Dick Miller as Walter Paisley
Barbara Morris as Carla
Anthony Carbone as Leonard de Santis
Julian Burton as Maxwell Brock
Ed Nelson as Art Lacroix
Jhean Burton as Naolia

'I will talk to you of Art, for there is nothing else to talk about, for there is nothing else. Life is an obscure hobo bumming a ride on the omnibus of Art...' So begins the Roger Corman film 'Bucket of Blood', in the sage words of the big burly bearded beatnik poet reciting on the stage of the hep-cat cafe where Walter Paisley works as a waiter.

Walter is a shy, nerdy little guy who longs to be uber-cool like the patrons of the cafe. He tries to emulate the 'cosmic' poetry of his idols, quoting it to customers as he serves them, and is asked by one 'Are you an artist?' 'Well - I'm working on something. It's not ready yet.' He returns home to his grotty room, eagerly unpacks a large parcel of clay and begins working it, hoping to fashion it into a likeness of Carla, a particularly cool girl at the cafe whom he admires. But he becomes distracted and annoyed by the insistent meowing of his landlady's cat, which has somehow got itself trapped within a wall of his room, and inadvertently kills it while attempting to rescue it.

Scared of having his landlady find out he killed her cat, he decides to attempt to hide it by covering it in some of the clay. Then he has an idea... The next morning, he arrives at the cafe with a parcel. Carla is interested in seeing the contents, and Walter proudly displays the now dried clay-covered cat to her as a 'sculpture' that he has created. 'I call it... Dead Cat.' Both Carla and the cafe owner are impressed with this bit of avant-garde art, and the owner volunteers to put the sculpture on display in the cafe to see if anyone wants to buy it.

Walter's sculpture is so successful, that the cool cats clamour for more! And, the girls are starting to take an interest in Walter now, too, for the first time ever! Naolia, another cool chick, leaps on him, declaring 'Walter, I want to BE with you!' However, as Walter knows he's a fraud, how is he going to produce more? He definitely wants to keep all his new-found friends.

Unknown to Walter, Naolia has slipped some drugs in his pocket as a token of her affections. This occasions a visit to Walter's room that night by an undercover narcotics agent who was at the cafe at the time and had observed the transaction. The narcotics agent begins to threaten Walter with a gun as Walter resists arrest, and Walter panics and kills the guy by braining him with a frying pan. Now, he has the idea of how to find further 'subjects' for his 'sculptures'...

I've always loved this film and can (and do) watch it again and again. The beatnik atmosphere is wonderful, Dick Miller (a regular in other Roger Corman films) was born to play Walter, and the other 'hep' actors are funny and convincing in their daddy-o cool roles.

As this is a double compilation, the ratings I give will be solely for Bucket of Blood, by far the stronger film of the two and which would definitely hold its own released as a single feature. Highly recommended!

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER

Starring:

Don Sullivan as Chase Winstead
Fred Graham as Sheriff Jeff
Lisa Simone as Lisa
Shug Fisher as Old Man Harris
Bob Thompson as Mr Wheeler
Janice Stone as Missy Winstead

This is the tale of a giant lizard, a Gila monster that has grown to be 60 feet long, which lives within 'these lonely areas of forest and dark shadows' that surround the small suburban town in which this story takes place.

We start off with a group of teenagers hanging out at the local cafe, having first parked all their hot rods outside. (Apparently every teenager in this town has a hot rod.) They discuss all sorts of hot topics such as a planned trip to a local drive-in movie ('Hey gang, do you know this'll be Lisa's first trip to a drive-in??' - hey, scoop of the week!)

But then things start getting sinister. A man goes to the sheriff to say that his 19-year-old son didn't come home last night. The sheriff doesn't take him seriously, brushing him off with an opinion that maybe Pat, being a 19-year-old boy, has simply run off and eloped or something. Irate father says 'If he's gone and got married, I'll wring his neck', so dismissing that idea. He insists on filing a missing persons report.

The first we see of the monster is when it decides to chow down on some poor man innocently hitchhiking on the highway. We then see the sheriff at a mysterious deserted car wreck on the highway, declaring 'I want a photo of those skid marks'. We presume he means those made by the car's tyres, but seeing the lizard now lurking menacingly in the bushes nearby, presumably now having had his dinner after the hitchhiker appetiser, we're not entirely sure.

The monster becomes more and more brazen, leaving the lonely area of forest and dark shadows, to begin to terrorise the town inhabitants. It falls to resourceful young local mechanic Chase Winstead to save everyone from impending doom.

This wasn't a bad little film - though not of 'classic' calibre, it had reasonably good acting, especially from the likeable and capable Chase, the cars are a treat to the eye for classic car fans (such as myself) - as well as hot rods, there's lots of fins and late-1950s style. And as I also love reptiles (lizards, dinosaurs, dragons, etc), I always enjoy a good giant-lizard film, and the monster in this film (a real lizard) is really quite cute when it isn't eating people. Recommended for a rainy weekend and a big bowl of popcorn.

Also on ciao.com as EsmeraldaDragon.