Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.
I’ve waxed rhapsodic about the influence of Roger Corman on the film industry before and almost certainly will again. For a month on TCM in 2016, Corman did a guest spot talking about American International Pictures movies, many of which he directed or produced on minimal budgets and filmed in less than a week. I like Corman. Sure, a lot of his movies are shit, but I like Corman as a person, or at least I think I would if I ever got a chance to meet him. He seems like a really cool guy, someone who doesn’t take himself that seriously but just wants to make a few movies and have a good time doing it. He also seems to realize that a lot of his movies are crap, but he actually has something to say with some of them. A Bucket of Blood has one of his better titles, so I was interested in seeing it.
According to Corman in the interview preceding the film, he got the idea for a horror comedy when he noticed an audience watching one of his films. He’d arranged a particular series of shots to get a scare and got it, and then after the initial shock, the audience laughed. So, the idea for a horror comedy seemed natural—get a scare, then get a laugh after the scare. Truthfully, A Bucket of Blood isn’t remotely scary. It’s also not laugh-out-loud funny, but the whole thing does work pretty well.
