Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: A Bucket of Blood
01:14:43 Share

This episode is brought to you by Microsoft. Developers like you are building the future, but you need the right tools to push what's possible. That's where Microsoft comes in. With GitHub Copilot, VS Code, Azure AI Foundry, and more. You have the tools to build your way and bring your ideas to life. You can build confidently, securely, and focus on creating the next big thing. Learn more at developer.microsoft.com slash AI. Microsoft, yours to build.

Let's be real. Life happens. Kids spill. Pets shed. And accidents are inevitable. That's why you need a washable sofa that can keep up. Our sofas are fully machine washable, inside and out, so you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living. Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, they're kid-proof.

pet friendly and built for everyday life. Plus changeable fabric covers. Let you refresh your sofa whenever you want. Need flexibility. Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment. Plus they're earth friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

Starting at just $699, it's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa. Visit WashableSofas.com today and save. That's WashableSofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Today's episode is brought to you by USPS. I know, I know, you've got your shipping game on lock. But did you know, with USPS Ground Advantage service, it's like your shipment has a direct line to you.

You're in the loop the whole time. It leaves the dock, you know about it. It's on the road, boom, you know. And when it reaches your customer, you guessed it, you're in the know again. Here's the real game changer. It's one journey, one partner, total peace of mind.

Check out USPS Ground Advantage service at USPS.com slash in the know. Because if you know, you know. Hey, everybody, it's your favorite play cousin, Junior, from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. You know, the Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are designed to outlast and outlive. Backed by Toyota's legendary reputation for reliability. So get in the Tundra with available I-Force Max Hybrid engine, delivering exceptional torque and towing capacity. Or check out a Tacoma.

with available off-road features like crawl control. It can take you beyond the trails. Toyota trucks are built to last year after year, mile after mile. So don't wait. Get yours today. Visit buyatoyota.com. For deals and more, Toyota. Let's go places.

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb, and I know some of you are wondering, hey, it's a Friday. Why are we doing a Rewind episode? Or you might be wondering, hey, didn't you say you were going to do the 199th Weird House Cinema selection today, and it was going to be the glorious virtual reality film from 1995, Virtuosity? Well, we've had some technical issues pop up, and we're going to have

to delay that episode until next week. So you have a little more time to watch Virtuosity ahead of our episode. In the meantime, we're going to unleash an episode from the vault here. This is going to be our 2024 episode on A Bucket of Blood. Seth Nicholas Johnson joined me on this recording to discuss this excellent 1959 Roger Corman beatnik horror comedy. Well,

Let's jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. My co-host Joe was out on holiday leave at the time of this recording, so I turned to former Weird House guest host and former producer on the show, Seth Nicholas Johnson of the podcast Rusty Needles Record Club. Seth, welcome back. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

Before we get into the movie and the movie selection here, what have you been up to on Rusty Needles Record Club? Well, I believe just yesterday we recorded our best albums of 2023 list, which is always fun. Not only do I enjoy making that list every year, but I also enjoy hearing everyone else's lists. Like my co-host Scott, when he was making his list, I gotta say, despite my

the absolutely absurd amount of music that I consume every year and how all of my spare money goes into listening to music and going to concerts and all that stuff.

I still hadn't heard probably two thirds of his top 10 list, which is amazing to me because we're close friends with very similar taste in music. And yet there's just so much wonderful music in the world that I love this time of year, the Decembers and Januaries, and you get to catch up on everyone's favorite of the year list. You're pretty much guaranteed gold from everyone. I love it.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess when you fill your life with music, there are so many different corners of your life. You have different musical tastes occupying. And yeah, not all of them are going to come up in conversation, even with close collaborators or friends. You know, there's going to be some hidden gems in there as well. Exactly. So yeah, it's a great time for music. And yeah, it's a fun show if there are any music fans in the audience.

All right. Well, the movie for this week is a 1959 Roger Corman directed and, of course, produced beatnik horror comedy or, you know, I guess a black comedy, if you will, titled A Bucket of Blood starring Dick Miller. This was your pick, Seth. This was not one that was really on my radar. How do you zero in on this one? What's your history with the film?

Well, basically, I have a real love for what's known as gray market DVDs. They're not quite black market DVDs. They are legal, but just barely, you know, those kind. The kinds of things you find in a store or online called like Drive-In Cult Classics 32 Movie Collection or the Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Volume 2. So if it was Ultimate, I'm not sure why there's a Volume 2, but hey, yeah.

Tales of Terror, 200 classic horror movies. I buy these collections often. Ultimately, just because I'm a big fan of creativity over craft. And when I'm watching...

Let's call it a typical Hollywood film. It usually follows the same beats and has the same structure. And it's just not very interesting to me just because you can predict where everything's going to go and it's whatever, it's boring. So by just taking a step outside of that blueprint for filmmaking, you end up in some weird corners. And even if it's a bad movie, as long as it's

interesting that's kind of enough for me so by going down the b-movie routes that's at least my reasoning for why i love b-movies and old movies and bad movies and

is that you can't really predict where it's going, which makes them far more interesting than the typical Hollywood film these days. And yeah, yeah. So that's why I went down that route. And then in one of these collections, I actually dug through my DVDs and I found the exact disc where I discovered this. This was called Horror Classics. And then it has the title here, Four Movies Over Four Hours. So...

Well, that's reasonably cut down because I was thinking one of the things about these, especially DVD releases, and they're still putting them out. And some of them are very nice and some of them are higher budget affairs. But yeah, sometimes it's like four movies. And to your point, other times it's like 50 movies. And you can sort of do the algebra in your head. It's like, OK, the quality of those four films is now spread out over like 50 titles. So there's going to be a number of neglected films.

uh films and forgotten films in this lot well for example here's what's on this uh disc which i was looking at the dates on it and i purchased this in 2003 from platinum disc corporation from lacrosse wisconsin so that's fun but here's what was on this disc uh horror hotel a bucket of blood the devil's hand and i bury the living

I've actually seen all four of those and they're actually not bad. But I think that's the point, though, is that usually when you're watching these, it's a real roll of the dice what the quality is going to be. Because the reason why people put out these gray market DVDs is because it costs them very little. Either these are public domain films or films that have just like the lowest licensing fees ever. And so it's just a cheap way for someone to make a quick purchase.

bucks. They just, you know, I think shovelware is a term for it when it's applied to video games, but it's just, it's nothing. It's cheap nothing. So usually it's garbage and every once in a while you find a gem and this, A Bucket of Blood, is one of those very rare gems in these piles of public domain and low licensing fees movies on these gray market DVDs. And when I saw it the first time, I immediately knew that

that it was just a cut above the rest and that it was a movie that I was going to share with people and show to people. And I think

more to the point i am an art school kid you know my college degrees and the fine arts and all that kind of stuff so when i see things like beatniks and cafes and gallery showings and all those things it just feels very at home to me and um the lampooning of it feels very direct and personal in a charming and fun way so i think that's another reason why i latch on to it uh so directly

Yeah, I mean, there's an authenticity to this film, right? It feels like it's commenting on actual people and culture. Sometimes the films of this caliber have that feeling of having been written by an alien, acted by aliens. This is just a rough approximation of what human beings are like. But there's real humanity in this, even though at the same time, of course, it is a

It is a horror film, horror comedy, a satire. It's not attempting to adhere very closely to the contours of life, but it's commenting on those contours for sure. And some of those comments are still pretty valid. So like this movie was made in the late 1950s. I think it's 59. Yeah.

And there's one joke in here in particular where I was like, yeah, that still hits home. It was all the beatniks were like waking up and they're like flop house and they're all sitting around to breakfast. And our protagonist walks in and the head beatnik offers him breakfast. And I wrote this down because I loved it so much. He offers him breakfast.

Soy and wheat germ pancakes, organic guava nectar, calcium lactate and tomato juice, and Gorbanzo omelets sprinkled with smoked yeast.

And I thought to myself, that's 100% a meal I run into in my little vegan cafes that I go to. Like, no over-exaggeration, no, like, playing it up for giggles. That's a real meal that I have eaten in a standard, typical 2023, or I guess 2024 now, vegan cafe. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was excited when I realized this was going to be a beatnik movie because I was recently reflecting just sort of, you know, casually while doing something else like around the house or something that I don't think Weird House Cinema had featured a proper beatnik movie before.

And this is a perfect one. It hits all the right notes. And there's not enough, like it's not just casually beatnik. It's not like, okay, we kill a couple of beatniks off in the first couple of minutes. It's devoted to commenting on beatnik culture. Right, right, for sure. Now, for anyone out there, if you're not familiar with the term beatnik or you're only loosely familiar with it,

roughly speaking, these were members of the Beat Generation and more specifically followers of kind of an anti-materialistic bohemian lifestyle, you know, to varying degrees that people are aligned with any given social movement. This would have been the late 50s, early 60s. You know, icons like Allen Ginsberg are generally associated with this scene. They were pre-hippies, though many of them would go on to become hippies. It's also...

I love when the mainstream bastardizes subcultures. I find it so funny every single time. A lot of 80s films, when they're trying to identify and focus on the punk scene, hilarious. Hippies. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, it's all of the subcultures. Whenever the mainstream focuses on a subculture, whether it be rave kids in their early 2000s, anything, anything.

It's always ridiculous and always fun. Hackers, the film Hackers was it was a great version of that. They're all good. Any any mainstream version of a subculture is lampoon worthy in itself. And this is one of them for sure. But I think they're they're pretty accurate.

Yeah. Yeah. They always, they always paint with a broad brush, but, uh, but given that they get to devote the whole film to beatniks, you have like these different caricatures of beatniks. Very true. Now you mentioned the different subcultures across different decades, you know, especially given that this film ultimately has, uh,

has a simplistic but effective format, you know. You could easily apply it to a different subculture like every decade or even every five years. And indeed, there's at least one seemingly bad remake of this film from 1995 that updates it for like Gen X hipsters instead of beatniks.

I've seen it. I've seen it.

Because one of the things this movie, A Bucket of Blood, is clearly lacking is a budget. It's clearly a bottom-of-the-barrel Roger Corman, we have $12 in five days, let's just make a movie. And so because of that, it suffers from the things that do suffer without a budget.

But then I watched the remake and I think if I remember correctly, I may not. I think it was a Showtime original movie, like movie of the week kind of thing. So it still had a rock bottom budget and it was it was not it was not improved with an increased budget because I don't believe they actually increased the budgets. And so I think the original is all you need. Yeah. Yeah. The remake has Anthony Michael Hall. And I think David Cross also shows up in it at some point.

But I have not seen it. I just watched a clip of it. And that was all I need. Yeah. Yes, that's correct. That's correct. If you're going to watch one, I recommend the original. All right. Well, let's go ahead and listen to a little bit of the trailer audio on this one. So folks can get a taste of what we're going to be talking about here. The artist, the poet, the figure model who loves to show it.

You suppose he could be physically attracted to her? No, man, he ain't the type. He don't get enough vitamin E. All these are beat. All these you'll meet in a bucket of blood. Let us make the scene. Crazy. Come, enjoy yourself. Where the hilarious enjoy the horrifying. In a bucket of blood. Now you're gonna shoot me! Don't shoot! Ah!

Come to the land of living dreams, where realists dream of the unreal. Walter, you've done something to me, something deep down inside of my prana. Oh, Walter, I want to be with you. You're creative. Beatniks at their bawdiest, the creative urge at its most primitive. I'm deeply moved, and I shall compose a poem. Love is art, art is love. It's the weirdest and the wildest.

I don't want to make statues anymore. I want to get married. To you.

All right. Well, if you want to go out and watch this film before we discuss it anymore here and get into some spoilers and so forth, well, luckily, you don't have to go and get that bargain bin of four to 50 forgotten horror films because it's widely available digitally. I watched this one on Prime, and the Film Detective studio put out a very nice Blu-ray of the picture if you want to go physical media on it. So you've got plenty of options.

For sure. It's public domain, so you can find it on YouTube. You can find it, you know, playing at a gas station pump anywhere. Anywhere, really, that there's a screen. That would be great. I wish they showed movies like this at gas stations. They should. You know, there's a couple of really good restaurants where they'll do that. They'll just project public domain old films, like, on the walls while you eat. There was a burger place in Atlanta that did that, that I really liked. Yeah, I know the place. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

All right, let's get into the people involved in this film. We mentioned already that this is a Roger Corman picture, directed and produced by

Corman, of course, towering name in American B-cinema. And this is a film that's often mentioned in highlights of his directorial output, even though I never, it wasn't really on my radar. I think it was probably because it had kind of, it has this grotesque title, Bucket of Blood, that puts a lot of ideas into your head. And I do have to stress, there is no bucket of blood that I remember. There's maybe a pan of blood, but it's not all the way filled up. Yeah, like a cream pot.

Yeah, it's not nearly as grisly as it implies. Obviously, you know, they're trying to get the teens into the drive-in here. This is perhaps a movie title first situation and perhaps even a poster first. Did you see the poster for this? Yeah. It's wonderful. It's like a page out of Mad Magazine. It's ridiculous. Yeah, but it clearly doesn't have a monster. So that might have been a reason that I never really was drawn into it before just because it was clearly not a monster film. It's talking about a bucket of blood and I end up...

up moving on to the next thing. And there are a lot of things to move on to in Roger Corman's filmography. But yeah, this one stands out because it's actually, you know, a darkly satirical horror comedy, and it kicks off a loose trilogy of Corman-directed and Charles B. Griffith-scripted black comedies. Again, this was 59, A Bucket of Blood, followed up by 1960s The Little Shop of Horror, which I think everyone is familiar with to some degree or another, and then 1961's Creature from the Haunted Sea.

All classics, all wonderful films. Excellent. Yeah, I haven't seen Creature from the Haunted Sea, but now I'm interested to check it out. I mean, Roger Corman, I mean, I don't think he's underrated, but perhaps people think of him mostly as someone who had a lot of content, but he also had a lot of quality, I have to say. Like, I think for his limitations in budget and time, he made a

amazing pieces for what resources he had. If he had more resources, actually, who knows? Maybe he worked well under pressure. But for the amount of money that he worked with and the amount of time that he spent on them, they're actually remarkable films. Oh, yeah. I mean, just discussing films that have been covered on Weird House in the past that Joe and I've talked about, like 1957's Not of This Earth.

Very cheap. But the fact that the movie is so cheap and you can still find things to talk about, there's still things that stand out and are memorable and demand bad remakes decades later. It's commendable.

Yeah. And that's and that you want to rewatch them and you want to share them with your friends. That's that's really telling when you when you just finished watching one hundred and ninety nine other bad horror movies. Yeah. And then, you know, a film like 1964 is Mask of the Red Death. You get to see what Corman was capable of when he did have a bigger budget backing him up. Right. And did go for like a stylistic picture. That's a great example. Yeah.

This picture, though, is, again, 1959. It's coming on the heels of, I think, five different pictures that he directed in the previous year in 58, including Teenage Caveman and eight pictures from 57, including Knot of this Earth and Attack of the Crab Monsters. So it's kind of entering a new dimension here. You know, he directed a lot of different things. We think of him, you know, in terms of monster films, but he did westerns, he did crime, he did dramas. And, of course, he did black comedies and satires, as we see in this picture.

Now, the screenwriter, again, is Charles B. Griffith, who lived 1930 through 2007. American screenwriter, best known for his work with Corman, which also included some acting. And, you know, as is often the case in the Corman camp, you know, it's like you're just called on to do different things.

I actually like that one. That was an MST3K one, and I like that one quite a bit.

Oh, yeah. I haven't watched that MS-D3K episode yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, that's... I want to say that's perhaps the second Netflix season, perhaps. And, yeah, no, that was actually a good one. I liked that one. This has some sort of crazy lion creature or something in the sky, I want to say. That sounds about right. That sounds about right. Mostly it was that kind of, like...

comedic relief and small child traveling across medieval Europe kind of situation. Yeah. Yeah.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Anabay. Anabay is the only machine washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabric.

Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Shop washablesofas.com for up to 60% off site-wide, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back.

Upgrade now at WashableSofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. It's tax season, and by now, I know we're all a bit tired of numbers. But here's an important one you need to hear. $16.5 billion. That's how much money in refunds the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year.

Here's another: 20%. That's the overall increase in identity theft related to tax fraud in 2024 alone. But it's not all grim news. Here's a good number: 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock's US-based restoration specialists will fix it, backed by another good number: the Million Dollar Protection Plan. In fact, restoration is guaranteed or your money back.

Don't face identity theft and financial losses alone. There's strength in numbers with LifeLock Identity Theft Protection for tax season and beyond. Join now and save up to 40% your first year. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code IHEART or go to lifelock.com slash IHEART for 40% off. Terms apply. Today's episode is brought to you by USPS.

Business owners and shipping managers, let me ask you something. How confident are you in your shipping process? If you're not using USPS Ground Advantage service, you might not be as in the know as you could be. Here's the deal. With USPS Ground Advantage service, staying informed isn't just an option, it's the standard. Imagine this. When your shipment leaves the dock, you know about it. It's in transit, boom, you know. And when it reaches your customer, you guessed it, you're in the know again.

But this is more than notifications. With USPS Ground Advantage Service, it's one seamless journey, one trusted partner. That means fewer headaches, more peace of mind, and greater confidence in your shipping process. So whether you're shipping locally or across the country, USPS Ground Advantage Service gives you the reliability, visibility, and simplicity your business needs.

Take control of your shipping at USPS.com slash in the know today. Because when you know, you know. Here's to those who have been touched by metastatic breast cancer or MBC, which is breast cancer that is spread to other parts of the body. Celebrating the patients, caregivers, health care providers, scientists and others who have been part of the HR positive HER2 negative MBC community with Eyebrance, Palbocyclib, a Pfizer product.

Prescription Ibrance 125mg tablets with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with HR positive HER2 negative MBC as the first hormonal based therapy.

Eyebrands may cause low white blood cell counts that may lead to serious infections. Eyebrands may cause severe inflammation of the lungs. Both of these can lead to death. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening chest pain, cough, or trouble breathing. Before taking eyebrands, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver, or kidney problems. Are nursing, pregnant, or planned to be? All medical conditions you have and about all the medicines you take. For more information about side effects, talk to your doctor. Talk to your healthcare team about eyebrands.

Visit iBrands.com or call 1-844-9-iBrands for more information. All right, getting into the cast here. This film is all about Walter Paisley. We're going to have a lot to say about the character of Walter Paisley as we proceed here. But Walter Paisley is played by the great Dick Miller, who lived 1928 through 2019. We've talked about him before on Weird House Cinema. Legendary character actor from the Bronx who made his way to California in the mid-50s.

He's trying to make a go at it as a writer, but then he meets Roger Corman. Roger Corman didn't need writers. He needed actors. So he started using them on pictures as early as 1955's Apache Woman, in which I believe he plays two different bit parts. So it's like, get in there, Dick. We need you in the background here. And okay, now wipe the makeup off. We need you in this scene as well.

And from that point on, he ends up showing up in other Corman pictures, such as Not of This Earth. And Not of This Earth is a great example where he comes in, he brings a lot of energy and creativity to the role. I think he ad-libs some stuff. He takes something that could just be, you know, a thankless little extra role. This guy's going to be killed by the alien menace and makes it something memorable.

And so it's no surprise that Corman finally casts him in the lead. He casts him in the lead in a crime drama titled Rock All Night. And this kicks off a whole string of roles in Corman Pictures. It becomes an icon of genre cinema, popping up later on in memorable roles in such pictures as Gremlins.

uh, tales from the crypt demon night, uh, the Terminator, of course, he has that great small role as the, the, the guy that's running the gun shop that the Terminator goes into. So wherever he pops up, he's always a treat. And while many film goers, I think tend to associate him with kind of snappy working man roles, you know, like in Terminator, just what you see here, pal, a bucket of blood cast him as a likable, but ultimately dimwitted outcast who desperately wants to belong. So it,

If you're not used to seeing him outside of those sort of working man roles, you might be a little surprised at the ultimately the depth that they get into here with this character. It's also the first of several characters named Walter Paisley that he ends up playing, right?

I was going through his IMDb recently because this is something that I had heard but never really paid much attention to. And yeah, I found about a dozen other times he played someone named either Walter Paisley, Walter, Walt, or something Paisley. Like I saw these two cop films he was in where he played like Sergeant Paisley back to back. And yeah, it seems like that was... I have to assume that...

It's everyone paying homage back to this film. But I guess it could also be that there was some sort of inside joke where that's something happened even pre this film with the name Walter Paisley. And even this film is homage to some other inside joke about the name Walter Paisley. But at least in cinema on screen, this is the birth of the name Walter Paisley that he then played that.

I guess just the name. Because it can't be the same role. Because again and again and again, all the different Waltz and Walters and Walter Paisleys he plays. Like, for example, the garbage man in The Burbs. I believe that's a Walter Paisley. I may be getting this one wrong. So he kept working with Joe Dante over and over. Joe Dante loved to put him in any movie he ever did. I think the show... Let's see. It was called...

Erie, Indiana. And I believe his role was in that episode, he would sneak around and whenever someone loses something, like they lose a sock in the dryer, they lose the cap of their pen, whatever. It's because Walter Paisley is sneaking up and stealing it because it's a big part about like the American economy where they need to ensure that people are still buying new things. So Walter Paisley is sneaking around and stealing people's belongings when they think that they lose them.

Really remarkable. Oh, I bring that up because Joe Dante produced that series. That's the connection there. Okay. I remember Eerie Indiana. I remember liking it, but I haven't really revisited it since it originally aired. Yeah, it was like X-Files for kids with definitely some Twilight Zone for kids mixed in there. It was a fun series. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Well, yeah, Dick Miller, the star of this picture. And I think it's a pretty solid performance. He's awkward and likable in the early goings. Not just socially awkward, but like physically bumbling in a very effective manner. Like there's an early scene where he's frustrated. He goes to kick like a milk carton on the street and falls. It's great.

No, he's very believable. And especially when you compare him to, like you said, his more like workman type characters later where he's kind of like gruff and, you know, what was he in Chopping Mall? Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah, he was a janitor who gets murdered by the robots. Exactly like that. That kind of role, I think most people associate him with just kind of like that, like grumpy old man and part of the body counts, basically. But yeah, no, this is a true character. It's quite good.

Yeah. And eventually this is a character that darkens somewhat. It is titled A Bucket of Blood. And he's able to push that portrayal to the dark side a bit as well. You know, not to the degree that somebody who specializes in that sort of thing, but then that sort of actor wouldn't be necessarily be able to to manage the lovable and likable aspects of the character as well. I mean, you know, it would take a it would take a special actor to really nail both of those. And I think Dick Miller does a pretty darn good job here. For sure.

All right. Other members of the cast. Carla is the only beatnik in the film that is nice to him early on. And as such, this is the woman of his dreams.

She's played by Barbara Morris, who lived 1932 through 1975. She appeared in several Corman films beginning in 57 with a trio that included Rock All Night. She's also in 58's Teenage Caveman. She's in 59's The Wasp Woman. And later on, she appeared in Corman's 1967 LSD movie, The Trip, which is pretty amusing. That's Dennis Hopper and his crew. Bruce Stern is in it as a guy that's here to guide you on your trip.

And then she pops up in 1970s, The Dunwich Horror, one of her final roles. That's a film that's been covered on Weird House as well. Not much to say here. She's likable, effective performance. Absolutely. Okay, then we have, we should mention that the central setting for the whole picture is the Beatnik bar. I guess it's more of a coffee shop type of situation. Coffee house. Beatnik coffee house called The Yellow Door. Yeah, it's kind of like that.

that typical coffee house that you picture in your mind where it has like a little stage for like an open mic night type situation. It's got, you know, locals art hanging around the walls. It's, it's that general purpose local art scene. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting that it's,

It's presented well. You believe that this is a real place, but it's presented seemingly simultaneously, like from an inward view as well as an outside view because it feels authentic. But then also there's this whole element of like not one, but two undercover cops have been assigned to this place to keep track of the beatnik heroin trade.

And going like 24 hours, we see them like trade off, you know, my shift's done your turn. Yeah. So was there really that much, uh, heroin action going on at your average, uh, like, you know, small coffee house, uh, in the late fifties? I don't know. Yeah.

But anyway, the guy that runs the place is this character, Leonard DeSantis, played by Anthony Carbone, who lived 1925 through 2020. The immoral owner operator of the Beatnik coffee house here. He appeared in various TV and film projects, including several Corman pictures. He pops up in 61's The Pit and the Pendulum, which, of course, stars Vincent Price.

Those were such great films. I love that run of all the Poe films. Oh, so funny. Yeah.

So I really like him in this picture. I think, you know, so he's initially just another beatnik jerk who doesn't give Walter a chance. He's also Walter's boss. And he's, of course, a mean boss who tells Walter he has to do his job and so forth. Quit staring into the stars. Quit talking to the customers. But he ultimately becomes like the one person who knows the terrible truth about what's going on.

And he has to wrestle with that. And we'll get into how he wrestles with it and what sort of choices he makes based on that knowledge. It's fun as an audience that we can see his motivation very clearly, but no one else can. It's fun.

All right. We also have Ed Nelson popping up in this one. Ed Nelson lived 1928 through 2014. He was the star of 58's The Brain Eaters, which we've talked about on Weird House before. He was a frequent Corman actor. In this, he plays one of those two undercover cops, Art LaCroix. And I'm not sure what flavor LaCroix he would be because he'd be one of the most

The less drinkable flavors, I think, you know, because he has a very rough exterior. He's at first you think he's like the sleazier of the beatniks. And then you realize, oh, he's an undercover cop. And he is dressed like an undercover cop, like a big goofy hat, a fur jacket. It's like he's he's definitely like, hello, fellow kids. I'm here. Yeah.

All right. So we have a lot of beatniks hanging out in there. And we do have kind of like a lead beatnik, your head beatnik. This is the poet Maxwell, played by Julian Burton, who lived 1932 through 2006. Mostly a TV actor, perhaps best known for this film. Yeah, he's the lead pompous beatnik poet and ultimately the tastemaker at the Yellow Door. If he says something is good, it is good. And everyone falls in line.

I thought this character was a constant delight. He does a lot of poetry performances either officially or sort of unofficially off mic because it's also just how he speaks to everyone. And it ultimately plays an essential role in both the plot and also just sort of the texture of the film.

It's note perfect, pitch perfect for someone who is both very pompous and yet like not phony. Like he does kind of back up what he says. He's just like a typical blowhard artist that really, really buys into their own their own scene and their own message and their own intentions. And it's it's perfect. It's perfect. I've met dozens of men just like Maxwell, for sure.

And, of course, there's a hypocrisy to him as well, as we'll get into. Oh, of course, because that is a part of art, absolutely. All right, moving on to the art direction on this film. It's worth pointing out because it's Daniel Haller, born 1929. He's come up on the show before because he went on to direct 1970s The Dunwich Horror. And he also did production design.

on Mask of the Red Death. So he worked with Corman a lot and went on to direct a number of pictures as well. I don't want to give away probably what he spent most of his time and money on, but yeah, you can tell what I bet most of his time went into. But we'll talk about that later. Because he couldn't take the same shortcuts that Walter did. Right. Very true. Very true.

All right. Music wise, the score is attributed to Fred Katz, who lived 1919 through 2013. And fittingly, there's a lot of a lot of sacks, a lot of delirious beatnik sacks that you've heard. And if you watch the films of this caliber, you've heard it before. You know, the sacks is drizzling. There's like implied or overt drug use. It is supposed to be the soundtrack of getting high in the late 50s.

And we have matching stoner characters. Just really convey that. Really let you know what's happening behind the scenes right here. But the Hays Code is stopping them from overtly telling you. I was... Yeah, you're referring to there's a duo, like the comedic duo of stoners. And I was constantly floored by the humor because it was not connecting with me. And I wasn't sure how much of it is like the cultural distance, how much of it is like the fact that they had to be a little...

careful in how they treated this humor. Because, yeah, they're supposed to be high all the time and they're sort of drifting in and out of the room, blasted out of their skulls. But I found very little that they did was actually like overtly funny. I felt like I was missing the joke. I mean, they were definitely the Beavis and Butthead of the 50s or perhaps the Cheech and Chong of the 1950s.

And yeah, all of their slang and goofiness never really did much for me. But I did notice one point that I was like, oh, that's clearly a joke that they're making, which was like someone said something and then one of the stoner beatniks says, oh, what did he say? And the other one goes, didn't you hear him? He's like, no, I'm too far out. Oh, yeah, that's good.

Of course. Now, one final note on the saxophone music, though. The credited saxophonist here, and we see him on screen, is Grammy-nominated Paul Horn, who lived 1930 through 2014. Were you familiar with Paul Horn? Only by name. I can't say I'm too familiar with specific saxophone jazz.

Yeah, this, I wasn't either, but this guy apparently, uh, was a pretty big deal. He went on to become a pretty big deal. He got into the like early new age music scene, particularly with a 1969 album called inside. Sometimes I think it's on like Spotify as inside the Taj Mahal because it was apparently recorded inside the Taj Mahal. And, uh, I was listening to part of it before we came in to record this and it's, uh, it's pretty good stuff. It's like, it's got that soothing, um, um, you know, uh,

Very, very obviously inspired by traditional Indian music and utilizing traditional Indian instruments. But yeah, it's quite good. And apparently it was a big hit in like the new age scene. And he went on to doing albums for what is it? Wyndham Hill, you know, the big new age music label of the day.

I mean, it matches this movie perfectly. It's a lone saxophone wailing into the night is the sound of like an open mic night at a, uh, at a little coffee shop. So yeah, no, it's, it's perfect for this beatnik styled film. Well, let's, let's get into the plot a little bit. This is not one that we're going to necessarily do like a blow by blow or, or beat by beat, if you will, if you want to get cheeky, um, uh, you know, account of what happens. And then to a certain extent, we don't have to go beat by beat because, uh,

The formula, you can pretty much guess at everything once we lay out the initial steps. I mean, it's basically five chunks of escalation. It escalates one after the other after the other, both in severity and I suppose in motivation. But I suppose we should tell the people what we're talking about before we start getting into those five steps.

Yeah. So, again, it's the late 50s. You've got this beatnik hang. You've got this coffee house. There's a lot of poetry going on, visual arts, obviously smoking, and also obviously some drug use going on. They're very clear about that. The police are interested in this place for that very reason.

And you see the typical interactions between the tastemaker, Maxwell, and we have his hangers-on. We have the stoner duo who are not artists and barely seem to know really what's going on in their immediate vicinity. But they're there. They're there to hang out. They're part of the scene. And in the midst of all of this, we have Walter.

And Walter just works at the coffee shop. He's going around like busting the tables and so forth, bringing coffee out to folks. But he's constantly distracted because he is ultimately, even though he works here, he is an outsider to the actual scene. He is a loner. He desperately wants to belong somewhere. And this is the primary culture that he is apparently exposed to. So he wants to be a part.

of what he sees here. And he sees that the main thing he needs to do is he needs to become an artist. And yeah, I think most people become artists in real life because they have an affinity for it or perhaps some sort of innate talent.

Walter, as we see, doesn't really have either of those things. It's like you said, it's just logically he wants to be a part of this social group. And the way to do that is to be a popular artist amongst the social group.

Yeah. Unfortunately, they're not they're not looking to let anybody in. Certainly, they're not looking to let him in. They're very everyone, with the exception of Clara, are pretty, pretty clear on this. Right. That he does not belong. He's only here to pick up the coffee mugs and so forth.

So that's part of it. But he doesn't seem to be drawn to the creative side of art so much. He's drawn to the prospect of social belonging and ultimately fame, but he doesn't put the time in. And perhaps part of that is he doesn't know much.

how to put the time in. You know, he's, I guess, exposed to this, like, very poetic vision of what creativity is that Maxwell is spouting. The idea that, like, you know, creativity is just something that, like, the artist breathes in and out. And it's not implied that it's something that takes work and dedication, that you may fail at a lot before you get somewhere. And so he also doesn't know how to fail.

He doesn't know how to set goals. He doesn't have any of these tools. And he's also probably supposed to be picking up a lot of additional myths about creativity. Yeah, we'll see this a little bit later when we watch him attempting to make art on his own early on where he's trying to sculpt a bust of Carla, the woman who's nice to him. And while he's doing it, you can just see his anger and he's trying to punch at it and jab at it. He's like, be a nose! Be a nose! And

He doesn't know. He doesn't know how to actually do these things. He isn't going through the steps. He just wants instantaneously, like you said, to breathe out the art and it exists. Yeah, he's hitting that. I've heard it called the creative cliff.

And it's interesting because I think, you know, everyone out there, you know, myself included, I'm sure you've had this experience. We've all had those be-and-knows moments with the things we're working on where you just, you can't make the thing happen. And it's frustrating. And ultimately, you know, you have to stop. You have to come back. But again, he hasn't been trained in any of that. He hasn't been told any of that. He hasn't been picking up on a culture that, you know,

that says that that is a part of being a creative person and engaging in creative endeavors. So he just gets super frustrated and doesn't know how to move forward.

Poor guy. Yeah. But we have to stress that he is, at least initially, a very likable guy. He's, you know, he's supposed to be a bit dimwitted. He's supposed to still be a nice guy. He wants to make friends. Nobody else is letting him in or giving him a chance, except maybe Carla. Yeah.

And, yeah, at the same time, all he's exposed to is this culture of there is only art. You know, Maxwell's constantly talking about this in his poetry, like nothing else has value except art. Everything else serves art. And these are the ideas that take on literal weight and end up festering in his increasingly troubled mind.

If he had just grown up in a different neighborhood, maybe this entire movie would be aimed at him wanting to become a baseball player or wanting to become a chef. It was just, you know, this happened to be the scene that he was in. And so this is what he needed to do. Oh, the chef is a great idea because there's your instant template for a cannibal movie. Yes. Yeah. A different Walter Paisley wants to be a fine chef.

uh, doesn't have the skills and ends up committing murder and cannibalism. I can, and I bet I have seen that film. So, yeah, let's, let's get to the point because he, uh, he's trying to create, uh,

He wants to create and he's failing. He can't make a nose does not manifest out of the clay. Meanwhile, the landlady, the nice but also nosy landlady who gets checking in on him, has a cat, a beloved cat that has somehow climbed into the wall. And he's got several things going frustrated with the art. He's trying to cook some sort of dinner.

And then it's clear the cat is stuck in the wall. So he does what a rational person does. He decides to stab the wall to free the cat and, of course, murders the cat in the process. Yeah. It's important to keep this in mind. The first death was not human. And the

And the first death was an accident. I think it's also very important that something you'll read a lot in, oh, how to write a screenplay movies or books and things like that, where it'll be like the save the cat moment is something that gets brought up often. You can look at the movie Alien, for example, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah.

Saving the cat is a big thing for a protagonist to do to show that they are likable and that they are caring and empathetic towards other creatures, et cetera, et cetera. This is the opposite. We start our film with killing a cat. Accidentally. Yeah, he's trying to save it. He's trying to do right. But it's a hideous fumble. The cat doesn't suffer much. It's not to protest or anything. But he's left with this dead cat. And...

Something clicks in his head, right? He realizes this is the opportunity. You know, he's got Maxwell's poetic drivels running around his head. And he realizes, OK, there is something I can do here. And then you can probably guess what it is. Yeah. If you haven't caught on, basically, he he traces the cat by by covering the dead cat with clay, turning it into a sculpture. Right.

which suddenly makes him hyper-realistic in his sculptures. That's something, I mean, how do you get that kind of anatomy? You know, it's difficult to really replicate the exact form and ratios of body parts of a living creature, but he's got it overnight. Yeah, so he brings this hideous sculpture in, which is just, you know, it's supposed to be

a dead cat covered in clay. Uh, and then there was a knife sticking out. I love that he didn't remove the knife. Yeah. He just left the knife in there. Um,

And, you know, at first, you know, he brings this in and, you know, Carla takes a look at it and also DeSantis takes a look at it. And, you know, it's grim and DeSantis is pretty quick to want to just dismiss it. But Carla's nice and she's like, I think you might have something here. And eventually DeSantis is like, OK, we'll put it in the corner. We'll see if anybody buys it. It can go in the corner of the coffee house and we'll just see what happens. He doesn't seem to expect much, but.

Of course, you know what's going to happen. It catches on. People are noticing this cool, hyper-realistic sculpture of a dead cat. It's very telling and very accurate of the art scene.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa? Wash away your worries with Anabay. Anabay is the only machine washable sofa inside and out where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices. That's right, sofas start at just $699. Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slipcovers made with performance fabric.

Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing. The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime. Shop washablesofas.com for up to 60% off site-wide, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping or restocking fees. Every penny back.

Upgrade now at washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Today's episode is brought to you by USPS.

Business owners and shipping managers, let me ask you something. How confident are you in your shipping process? If you're not using USPS Ground Advantage service, you might not be as in the know as you could be. Here's the deal. With USPS Ground Advantage service, staying informed isn't just an option, it's the standard. Imagine this. When your shipment leaves the dock, you know about it. It's in transit, boom, you know. And when it reaches your customer, you guessed it, you're in the know again.

But this is more than notifications. With USPS Ground Advantage Service, it's one seamless journey, one trusted partner. That means fewer headaches, more peace of mind, and greater confidence in your shipping process. So whether you're shipping locally or across the country, USPS Ground Advantage Service gives you the reliability, visibility, and simplicity your business needs. Take control of your shipping at usps.com slash inthenow today, because when you know, you're

you know.

Prescription Eyebrands 125mg tablets with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with HR positive HER2 negative MBC. It's the first hormonal-based therapy. Eyebrands may cause low white blood cell counts that may lead to serious infections. Eyebrands may cause severe inflammation of the lungs. Both of these can lead to death. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening chest pain, cough, or trouble breathing. Before taking Eyebrands, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are nursing, pregnant, or plan to be.

All medical conditions you have and about all the medicines you take. For more information about side effects, talk to your doctor. Talk to your doctor about Ibrance, the number one prescribed FDA-approved oral combination treatment for HR-positive HER2-negative MBC. Visit Ibrance.com or call 1-844-9-IBRANCE.

Here everybody, it's your favorite play cousin Junior from the Steel Ray Morning Show. The Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are designed to outlast and outlive, combining raw power with precision engineering. All backed by Toyota's legendary reputation for reliability. Climb inside a Tundra and experience the uncompromising strength with its available i-Force Max engine. The Tundra delivers exceptional power, torque, and towing capacity.

the spacious and high-tech cabin keeps you connected on the run. Or check out a Tacoma, agile, dependable, and unstoppable. The Tacoma is designed for those who go beyond the trail. Stay ahead of the pack with available off-road features like crawl control. Or break out your tunes with the available portable JBL speaker. Toyota trucks are built to last. Year after year, mile

Well, Seth, do you want to walk us through the escalation of these crimes?

Each one a different artistic creation by our protagonist, Walter Paisley. Yeah, almost an anti-hero. He's the subject, for sure. So we'll tell you now, basically, there's a rapid escalation and his motivation changes from death to death to death to death to death to moving on. So, yeah, first one is a cat and it's an accident. So, yeah.

perhaps out of just desperation, he makes this statue and it's beloved. Oh no, positive reinforcement. That's the worst thing anyone could have done to Walter Paisley after accidentally killing something. So he's very excited. He's on Cloud Nine. All the other beatniks are really proud of him for making this beautiful piece of art that Maxwell has said is good. So now everyone else is to say it's good too. I should add, they like it so much.

that there's this one lady who comes up to him at the coffee house and she just can't put it into words how beautiful the work is. So she gives him a whole lot of heroin. Yes. She gives him a vial of heroin. And he doesn't even know what it is. She just wanted to be a part of it.

of this of this of this creation and she thought that the way she could do it first she tries to go home with him but he is very um confused and doesn't really understand what's happening and then she goes well i have to contribute i have to be a part of this so then she gives him heroin now as we've mentioned there are two undercover cops who are on constant rotation at this one coffee house one of them sees this handoff and follows walter home and

He interrupts Walter in his house and goes, hello, Walter. And he's like, oh, I know you. You come down to the store. How are you? Come on in. Come on in. You know, let's be friends. Hooray. Someone came to see me at my house. And he's like, I'm an undercover cop. I saw that you were handed heroin. I'm going to have to take you in. He's like, heroin? He's like, yeah, yeah. That little jar that was giving you. He's like, you know, horse? And he's like, oh, it wasn't that nice of her to give me that nice horse. Yeah, that nice, expensive horse. Yes. And, um...

So he doesn't get it. He definitely doesn't get it. Now, the undercover cop is frustrated, so he tries to convince him and try to get what he wants from him. So he pulls out his gun. He's like, look, Walter, don't make me use this. I'm going to have to... He's like, oh, no, you're going to shoot me. He's like, no, I'm not going to shoot you. I'm just saying...

I'm a cop. I'm arresting you. Let's go. And he's like, no, I don't want you to shoot me. And so he was cooking at the time and he was holding like almost like a crepe pan, let's say. And so if you haven't seen a crepe pan, it's like a frying pan, except the edges are very, very low, very, very, very, a very shallow frying pan.

And so Walter seemingly, at least in his own mind for sure, in self-defense swings this pan at the cop and we don't see it on screen, but later we will see just cleaves his head right down the middle with this, with this very slim pan. So first death was an animal and it was an accident. Second death undercover cop, quote unquote, self-defense. Let's, let's see where this keeps going.

So obviously there's the pattern here. So he covers this undercover cop in clay. And I suppose we'll kind of let this part happen. So the first person to realize what Walter is doing is Leonard, the guy that owns the art house, the coffee shop, the Yellow Door.

And he sees it because I believe the cat statue tips over and just a little piece of fur is poking out. And he's like, oh, you hack fraud. You weirdo. What what what do you do when trying to cover a dead cat in clay and put it in my coffee house? This is ridiculous. So he's about to, like, go tell it to Walter and get mad at him.

When someone comes in, let's call it a square patron comes in and it's like, I need that cat sculpture. I'll pay you 10 times what you ask for. I must have it. I must have it. And at first he's like, no, I'm not going to sell you a dead cat covered in clay. I'll double it. And he's like, oh, no, no, no, I can't do that. I'll triple it. And you see it. You see it in Leonard's eye that he's like, oh, this is money. This is absolutely money.

Fine. I won't give it to you today, but yes, we'll do it because I'm sure he goes through his mind. He's like, all right, it's just a dead cat. It's fine. It's fine. But then Walter brings in his next piece, which he has named Murdered Man. And it's the undercover cop covered in clay.

And Leonard is the only one who puts two and two together and understands what's happening, what has escalated. Everyone else thinks it's a wonderful sculpture. How did you capture that look of agony on his face? Oh, your realism. Oh, this is so wonderful. I remember there's one point where someone's like, oh, how did you do this so quickly? He's like, oh.

oh, you know, I just put some clay on and fixed it up. No, no big deal. It's like, it must have taken you forever. It's like, no, it doesn't take me too long. Like, okay, right. Because you're just putting a facade on this. You're not actually sculpting anything.

So everyone loves it except Leonard. Leonard feels ill. Leonard does not want to be a part of this. And he doesn't know what to do because on the one hand, money. And on the other hand, is he like an accessory at this point? And so he's trying to de-escalate this whole situation. He's like, you know what, Walter? Why don't you maybe try some free form? Forget this human figure thing. Nobody can do that anymore. Just free form, abstract things.

No more humans. No more death and destruction. Okay. And everyone else is like, what? He's so good at this. Clearly. Let him lean into this. Yeah. Like Maxwell comes to his defense. It's like, don't tell him how to do his art. Yes.

It's wonderful. And so there we are now. Now, because of this new statue and the first cat statue, the whole place is abuzz. And Leonard has even in an attempt to just kind of, I guess, a to keep Walter away from him a little bit. He has.

I guess fired is the wrong way to put it, but he has given him an advance for his sculptures and said, just, just go, just leave. Don't, don't, don't make any more statues for now. Okay. Just, just relax. Yeah. Go on a little sabbatical here. And he's clear. He's not, he's like, yeah, don't, don't make any more art just yet because again, money, but also, yeah, he knows that what that, what another piece would mean. And he's probably, you know, uh,

juggling around this idea. It's like, am I an accessory to murder at this point? And then also you can imagine he's telling himself, but hey, nobody else has to know that I know. I can just be as surprised as everyone else when this eventually blows up, but I can make a little bit of money in the meantime. Absolutely. I mean, you know, the yellow door is not a huge money-making endeavor. Like the Beavis and Butthead characters, I think they

often say they have no money and they're just hanging around yeah i i think there's a there's a lot of just people lurking there that aren't actually giving leonard any money um so moving on the next time we see uh walter paisley suddenly he's got a little money in his pocket he has two successful sculptures he comes into the yellow door not as an employee but as a guest and

He's bought a fancy new beatnik outfit. He's walking around like a little walking stick that he refers to as his Zen stick, which is just remarkable. And everyone's just fawning over him. Maxwell invites him down to be his special guest, etc., etc. And this is all wonderful. Walter's having the best time of his life. This is anything and everything he ever wanted. He's getting it.

But then a artist's model who is often a part of the scene named Alice, who's been out of town for the past week or two, she says she comes into the hangout and then like everyone's fawning over Walter and she's confused because it's like, what? No, no, no, no. I'm awesome. You guys are awesome. He's not awesome. He's just the busboy.

And they're like, no, no, he's an artist now. And he's like, no, y'all are putting me on. Like, this is just a joke for my benefit. Like, he's just the bus boy. Get him out of here. Walter doesn't like this. He was just on the top of the mountain. He's not going to come down. So, like I said, she's an artist model. He's mad at her.

But she goes on home and he follows her and he's like, I'd love to hire you to be an artist model so I can make another sculpture. And she's like, well, that is my job. Fine. Let's do it. He's like, yeah, let's do it now. Yeah. Yeah. So she goes to his place. And now now Walter is definitely crossing a line because you can see where this is going. He kills her, strangles her with a scarf.

And this one's just personal spite. Like there's no self-defense. There's no accident. He is doing this because Alice was mean to him. And now he is, he needs a body for the arts. You know, it's, it's very funny. I was thinking about this. This movie came out from the same writer director right before little shop of horrors, many similarities. This situation here specifically is where it's like, Oh, I got to kill someone. Well, you're mean, right?

I guess you'll do. It's that same situation of a ne'er-do-well kind of nebbish guy just being like, I need bodies. Here we go. And so now he's going in cold blood. And yeah, it's a character that she's not hateable.

No. But she's not supposed to be 100% likable. So, you know, we're accelerating through that gray zone into like, yeah, clearly he's a murderer at this point. But he hasn't attempted to murder anyone that we really like yet. And especially in a genre picture, like, I guess we're more forgiving of that sort of thing. Like the threshold of the uncrossable transgression is maybe a little farther out in a movie like this.

But we still have room to escalate. So we continue. And once again, Leonard is like, stop. You have to stop. Please stop. This is terrible. Stop, stop, stop. But he just keeps on doing his thing. And he's really like kind of like hitting the thesis on the head at this point because they threw like a big celebration for him where he got very drunk. And he's just kind of like lamenting and feeling kind of sad. And he starts like walking home alone by himself and

And he literally says the phrase, I got to do something before they forget. Yeah. It's just this moment where it's like, yeah, that's a kind of all he has and all he wants is this moment of being in the spotlight and being admired forever.

I don't want to put too many parallels here, but there's definitely some modern social media parallels there of things of just like, I just got to do something for the gram. I just got to put something up on TikTok. It doesn't really matter what it is. I just need to stay in the spotlight for another minute. And kind of like we were saying before, where it's like,

He's not trying to get notoriety by being good at something. He's not trying to get notoriety because like he particularly loves making art. He just wants to be famous. And so again, there's some social media parallels there of like just wanting fame for fame's sake to fit in, be a part of a social scene. And just like he said, I got to do something before they forget. I just need to.

go i just need to do and so so here's here's where he crosses yet another line a further escalation he's walking home drunk from the yellow door and he sees like a construction worker perhaps like making a furniture in like a little like outdoor kind of like alleyway workshop kind of thing and he just kills the man he cuts off his head with a like circular saw

Again, this is all Hays Code, so we don't see anything. There's like no violence in any of this. And he makes a bust. It's just the man's head that he covers in clay and like sticks on a stick. And if that's art, hey, that happens all the time. But no, no.

But Leonard, once again, knows exactly what that is. And he's flipping out. He doesn't know what to do. You see him just acting like a very conflicted, you know, weirdo. But he's like, all right, we're going to set up an art show because I got to cash in on this now. That's his logical conclusion. Not this is the point where I call the police. Even like set up, like convince everyone, like now I realize what's up. He's like, let's go ahead and do that art show while we can.

Exactly. This has a shelf life and I need to get my money quick because he mentions this and this is actually very accurate. He gets a 50% cut of the sales of the pieces. And in fact, we do see him take advantage of Walter early on. The dead cat was originally being sold, I believe, for 100. And so Walter would have gotten 50 and he would have gotten 50.

But the when he was like, no, I'm not going to sell. I'm not going to sell. I believe it went all the way up to 500. But when he paid Walter, he still only paid him $50. So Leonard is is a villain here and he is taking advantage of Walter, but he really needs this money. So he's going to do an art show and it's it's it's going to bring in everybody. And so they do it. They bring in this big art show.

got a dead cat, got a dead cop, got a dead art model, got a dead construction worker's head on a stick, all covered in clay. And everyone's loving it. There, there's an art critic there saying, Oh, I'm going to write this up and all these pieces are going to be worth 10 times what they are now. And everyone's loving it. This is a great time. And, and,

at this point, he, uh, Walter Paisley is so, you know, um, living his dreams that he does something that he's wanted to do, which is to, uh, attempt a romantic relationship with Carla. She's the only one that's ever been nice to him. He's got to go and, and show her his, his feelings. He's, uh, at the peak, uh,

of his career that perhaps that he'll that he ever will be he needs to do this now so he confesses his feelings and she's like nah we can be friends but i just don't see you that way typical trying to let him down easy situation and you see something kind of change in him and he goes yeah how about i do a sculpture of you carla oh yeah and now he's really crossed that line like now he's in the

in the unredeemable area here because he's decided, well, if you're not going to be my partner, you are going to be my art. Absolutely. So it went from accident to self-defense to personal spite with a stranger, random killing of a stranger. Now it's personal killing of someone that he knows well and has affection for. There's only one place you can go after this, and I bet you can guess what it is.

Time for a sofa upgrade? Introducing Anabay sofas, where designer style meets budget-friendly prices. Anabay brings you the ultimate in furniture innovation with a modular design that allows you to rearrange your space effortlessly. Perfect for both small and large spaces, Anabay is the only machine-washable sofa

inside and out. Say goodbye to stains and messes with liquid and stain resistant fabrics that make cleaning easy. Liquids simply slide right off. Designed for custom comfort, our high resilience foam lets you choose between a sink in feel or a supportive memory foam blend. Plus,

our pet-friendly, stain-resistant fabrics ensure your sofa stays beautiful for years. Don't compromise quality for price. Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your living space today. Sofas start at just $699 with no risk returns and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get up to 60% off, plus free shipping and free returns. Shop now at washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Today's episode is brought to you by USPS.

Business owners and shipping managers, let me ask you something. How confident are you in your shipping process? If you're not using USPS Ground Advantage service, you might not be as in the know as you could be. Here's the deal. With USPS Ground Advantage service, staying informed isn't just an option, it's the standard. Imagine this. When your shipment leaves the dock, you know about it. It's in transit, boom, you know. And when it reaches your customer, you guessed it, you're in the know again.

But this is more than notifications. With USPS Ground Advantage Service, it's one seamless journey, one trusted partner. That means fewer headaches, more peace of mind, and greater confidence in your shipping process. So whether you're shipping locally or across the country, USPS Ground Advantage Service gives you the reliability, visibility, and simplicity your business needs.

Take control of your shipping at USPS.com slash in the know today. Because when you know, you know. Here's to those who have been touched by metastatic breast cancer or MBC, which is breast cancer that is spread to other parts of the body. Celebrating the patients, caregivers, health care providers, scientists and others who have been part of the HR positive HER2 negative MBC community with Eyebrance, PalboCyclib, a Pfizer product.

Prescription Eyebrance 125mg tablets with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with HR positive HER2 negative MBC as the first hormonal based therapy.

Eyebrands may cause low white blood cell counts that may lead to serious infections. Eyebrands may cause severe inflammation of the lungs. Both of these can lead to death. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening chest pain, cough, or trouble breathing. Before taking eyebrands, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver, or kidney problems. Are nursing, pregnant, or planned to be? All medical conditions you have and about all the medicines you take. For more information about side effects, talk to your doctor. Talk to your healthcare team about eyebrands.

visit ibrance.com or call 1-844-9-ibrance for more information here everybody is your favorite play cousin junior from the steam right warning show the toyota tundra and tacoma are designed to outlast and outlive combining raw power with precision engineering all backed by toyota's legendary reputation for reliability climb inside a tundra and experience the uncompromising strength with its available iforce max engine the tundra delivers exceptional power torque and towing capacity plus

the spacious and high-tech cabin keeps you connected on the run. Or check out a Tacoma, agile, dependable, and unstoppable. The Tacoma is designed for those who go beyond the trail. Stay ahead of the pack with available off-road features like crawl control. Or break out your tunes with the available portable JBL speaker. Toyota trucks are built to last. Year after year, mile

Toyota's official website for deals. Or stop by your local Toyota dealer to find out more. Toyota, let's go places.

So, ultimately, I believe at the event, someone, I think, bumps into... Oh, no, no. I believe they see a fingernail poking out of the Alice sculpture. And they're trying to figure out what it is. Then someone knocks over one of them and it cracks open. And, like, so the cat is out of the bag. Everyone knows. And they are trying to go get Walter. Walter's like, I got to get out of here. So he runs home.

I guess I want to put this delicately because it's not a nice thing that happens. He puts a little bit of clay on his face, covers himself just a little bit in clay, and he hangs himself.

And that is the end of the film. And I believe Maxwell says like, oh, it's his final piece, you know? Yeah. And that's it. That's the whole movie. And it's very straightforward, very simple escalation, but just delicately done. And all the pieces kind of fit together in a real nice way.

A nice little, you can feel the growth. It's almost like Breaking Bad in a way. You're okay with this character at first and you just see them getting worse and worse and worse. And by the end, you're like, no, I'm not with them. They've made too many bad decisions against people I like. I'm not in at all. Yeah. I mean, this is like a lot of these, the pictures of this time period, like this is a very short runtime, 65 minutes, right?

So everything is very economically presented, like beat to beat. You can follow it very easily. There's not a lot of wasted motion here. Absolutely. Robert, I must tell you about something that I attempted back when I believe I was in college at the time. I wanted to make a full length animated remake of this film by myself. Oh, wow.

At the time, I was really into rotoscope animation. There's a studio called Flat Black Films who did things like Waking Life and Scanner Darkly, stuff like that. Loved that animation style. And I decided I was going to make a rotoscoped film of this film, A Bucket of Blood. So I started it.

And I immediately realized how long it would take me by myself to rotoscope an entire feature length film. But I did plan it all out. And I the idea and all of the work I put into is still sitting there in my first 10 minutes of this film finished. I'd called it another bucket of blood.

And my favorite part about this was that because it is black and white, I had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted with the color palette. And so I made each character within a completely different hue of a color palette that had a deeper meaning tied into like the representation of the color and what that color can mean in like the greater world. So for example, Maxwell, because he was like the head of,

of the whole yellow door scene. I made him purple because he was regal and the purple is often a royal color associated with that. Leonard, because he runs the yellow door, his whole hue color palette was yellow. And also because he's quite a cowardly character. He won't actually take any action, won't do anything. Walter was completely in shades of green because not only was he green in terms of inexperience,

He also had a bit of the green-eyed monster. He was very envious of others and wanted to have what others had, etc., etc., etc. All these things happened for all the central characters. They all had a color coding that kind of showed their...

their future intentions and also perhaps said something about their personality and i'm very sorry to say that i finished about oh five minutes of this five to ten minutes and i was like i will never do anything else if i dedicate my time to this this will absorb my entire life for the next five years if this is what i focus on so so yes i'm sad to say i never i never finished it but i i use some clips in like animation reels that i use to like get real animation jobs

Oh, well, that's good. It's a great idea for a project. I guess you didn't have a be-a-nose moment, but you had this moment that Walter never has where you realized how much work it would take and what it would take out of you and what the returns would be based on this investment. Absolutely. And in some ways, rotoscoping, if folks don't know, is an animation style used with tracing over source film panels. Oh.

So that being the case, I was well aware that my animation style was pulling off what Walter Paisley was doing in the film as well. That I was, instead of applying clay to the figures, I was putting a layer of pixels over everyone. It was a fun project, but that's for when you're in your 20s and you have nothing but free time and you think that every art project is achievable because you have infinite time in this world. Yeah.

And then you have to get jobs. You know, looking back on Walter's creations, like the first one is kind of an interesting stopping point because there are artists who use and have used animals and dead animals and cadavers to varying degrees, either actually as part of the work as we see with Walter or, of course, as inspiration, anatomical studies. I'm, of course, very much opposed to any kind of animal cruelty-based artwork, but the

just the idea of like a dead animal being used in the art is not, you know, completely out of bounds. A very famous one is Damien Hirst. Damien Hirst, he has done that with sharks. He has done that with, gosh, I think there are other animals as well. His shark piece is the most famous. But you're absolutely right. And these are highly applauded, highly famous and well-respected artists. Damien Hirst is one of the most popular

Yeah.

And you need any kind of fluids or parts you use. It needs to be above board. It needs to be consensual and above board. Yes. Yes. I remember Body Works is like a museum piece where they did that as well. And another thing, too, that the artists who use these human or animal bodies death as as like the pallets.

They're not lying to you. They're not pretending that it's not a dead body. They are saying this is this. That's part of the message. They're not hiding a dead body inside of a clay exterior. Now, another interesting theme that I like, and we get to see a little bit of this, reflections of it, perhaps in the third act, I guess.

where Walter is concerned about what's next and how am I gonna, again, we talked about this, how I've got to put up something else. I've got to stay in the conversation. And at the same time, like fear that they're gonna find him out. He's gonna realize that he's a fraud. So we have that interesting texture that he is, I guess, quite literally a fraud. And there is this dark secret and people don't know the dark secret of how he's creating the art. And it's not based in his sculpting talent that has come out of nowhere.

And so, you know, it gets into that whole like fear that I think even being a very successful artist have that like they're going to see through me. They're, you know, they're going to, they're going to, to, to realize the insecurities that I have about my creations. Imposter syndrome, for sure. Yeah. And then also, you know, getting back to what you said, this idea of like, how do I follow it up? Like, what is the next thing that I have to do? And with Walter, like his piece

pieces of art are literal crimes. They're literal, you know, traumatic experiences that, you know, we're still taking a lot out of them.

And yeah, we can sort of like roughly compare that to any creative process where it's like you put all this work into something, you know, you lose something in making it. Maybe you don't even love the thing when you're done with it anymore, but it's done. And then there is either the overt demand or just the pressure you feel to like, you've got to do something else now. You've got to go perhaps go through all of that again.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's very understandable, very believable. And if folks are curious, this version of a story has been told multiple times in other lampoonings of the art world. There's a really great one called Art School Confidential, where a series of murders are

are taking place around like an art school campus and then like the paintings of the dead bodies are the remnants from the from the killer and there's an episode of CSI I remember where people were killing people

people and then the artist would then uh kind of like that like um bodies exhibit they would like plasticize them where they were just like standing on the street frozen and that was like their art like like like this idea because like when you think about like

What are the extremes of where art can go? This is a logical slippery slope conclusion is like murder. Murder can be the thing because there are also versions of this. There was an artist, for example, that his art piece was to be shot. He stood in a gallery and got shot by a gun. And that was his art piece that day. So, you know, there are versions of this in the real world. And so it's it's fascinating. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And then, of course, you also have the various wax museum pictures where a toy with some version of this as well. It's like the hideous secret behind these these wax doubles is that, of course, they're dead bodies that the wax master is covered up in wax.

Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting concept that can be approached multiple ways. Now, I'd say with the ending of the film, like you said, it's a pretty dark ending, but it also happens really fast. It has that kind of quick wrap-up feel that you find in a lot of, especially like crime pictures of the time period, but even like very, you know, superhero-y, horror, sci-fi things. It's like, enemy's dead, roll credits.

So it's all very sudden and it's very much in keeping with the time period. But I found myself wondering, again, he's just hanging up there. He's got some clay just smeared on him. What if they'd gone in a different direction? And what if Walter's final creation, his own death, was beautiful? What if it had been transcendent? What if it had been sublime? It wouldn't have been really in keeping with the feel of the film, but I can't help but imagine what that would have felt.

I guess it would have skewed the message of the film in perhaps an undesirable direction, but it might have also been just a little less dark in that regard. I'm not sure. Absolutely. And, you know, there is also...

gosh, I suppose a fetishization is perhaps too extreme of a term, but you know, when artists die young, that is always a thing that occurs where people will then, um, give a deeper embrace to their work. Uh, quite often, uh,

for good reason because it's wonderful art but it is just you know it's a trope it's a trope that if an artist dies young their work is embraced even more so what would have happened the year after this would there have been artists that were really inspired by his work could there have been a bucket of blood to where it was another artist in like art school who was studying Walter Paisley and then becomes a copycat murderer I think that's the easiest idea in the world would have been wonderful

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, the cult of the young artist that we've tragically lost is

But also just like the cult of the young artist. I was listening to an NPR piece before this recording and the expert, and I'm sorry, I don't have the information in front of me. I can't remember what the expert's name was, but he was talking a bit about like this myth, like the basic myth that like real creativity, it comes young and it comes strong.

You know, and it's the sort of creative myth that ends up having a negative impact on a lot of us. And you can imagine that sort of myth impacting the fictional Walter Paisley as well. Like, you know, I'm not a natural talent. What then I must be lost. There's nothing I can do. And that's that's not the case.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, it's for such a silly throwaway movie. There's a lot of thought that went into it and a lot of thought you can have afterwards about its implications and its greater effects. And yeah, in many ways, like I said, the mirroring of our modern world and how perhaps it's not that different from how it was in the 50s, comparing social media to the beatnik world of the 1950s.

A lot of similar aspects, which is fascinating. I think my final thought on this film would be I was really expecting someone to say daddy-o at some point, and no one ever did. And it makes me wonder, I've never researched when daddy-o enters public usage or becomes associated with beatniks. Maybe I'm going on faulty information here. That's a great point. I actually own a couple of...

beatnik comics from around this era there's a comic artist I love named John Stanley and he tried to make a whole series just about goofy beatniks in the 1950s and it was only popular enough to make two issues and then it was cancelled and

And the thing I remember in their slang is they use the word REET all the time. R-E-E-T to mean like correct, right, you know? And I remember, you know, in the 2020s being like, huh, all right. Like, you know better than I do. But yeah, I thought you'd be saying things like daddy-o. But no, no, no. They had their own slang. It's fascinating seeing those little like time capsules.

All right, Seth. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for coming on the show to discuss A Bucket of Blood from 1959. Yeah, a lot to chew on with this one. Tell folks out there where they can find Rusty Needles Record Club and how they can get in touch with you. Absolutely. So, Rusty Needles Record Club is a weekly podcast, new episode every Friday.

And it's a podcast in the style of how podcasts used to be. Remember the old days, folks, like around like, let's say 2004, when people made podcasts just for fun and didn't put ads in them and just kind of like...

Yeah, they were personal and simple and very niche. That's that's what Rusty Needles Record Club is. It's it's it's a 2004 style podcast. And if you like music and you want to expand your musical horizons or perhaps you just don't have anyone around you that you can have those kind of conversations with.

You can at least have like a parasocial relationship with me and my co-host Scott as we talk about music. Our goal of the podcast is to listen to every single album ever made. And so far, we're doing great. We are progressively moving towards that direction. So if you want to join us, just look up Rusty Needles Record Club anywhere you listen to podcasts. We're available everywhere. And yeah, you'll find it. It's easy. That's it. Join us if you feel like it.

All right. As for Weird House Cinema, of course, Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you want a nice list of all the films we've covered so far in the show, including, I guess, three episodes with you now, Seth, because during Joe's parental leave, we covered two films, I think. Right.

If you want to find all of those, well, you can find a nice list at letterboxd.com. That's L-E-T-T-E-R-B-O-X-D.com. Her username is weirdhouse. There's a nice list there. Dive in there. Find something you've never seen before or find something you want to revisit. It's a great tool to use.

And yeah, in general, I'll just ask everyone out there, hey, if you've never rated and reviewed the podcast on one of the many platforms where you can get it, why don't you do that? That could help us out. Another thing, if you listen to this on Apple, an Apple device, just maybe pop in and make sure that, you know, you're still subscribed. You're still getting downloads. That also helps us out in the long run.

Thanks, as always, to our excellent producer, JJ, for helping put together the show here. And if you want to get in touch with me and or Joe, you can email us at contact at StuffToBlowYourMind.com. Stuff To Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I was in Whole Foods the other day looking for a fun little bevy to go with my lunch, and I found my new obsession. SunSip is a gut-healthy soda from HealthAid, and they just dropped two new flavors. Dr. Bubbles is a fresh take on the doctor's signature blend of sweet fruit and subtle spices, while Cream Soda serves up velvety vanilla and sweet caramel. And the best part?

SunSip has gut-healthy prebiotics, vitamins, and minerals, all with 40 calories or less. Grab these new SunSip flavors on sale now. Only at Whole Foods in the beverage cooler near HealthAid Kombucha.

Let's be real. Life happens. Kids spill. Pets shed. And accidents are inevitable. That's why you need a washable sofa that can keep up. Our sofas are fully machine washable, inside and out, so you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living. Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, they're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built

♪♪♪

Starting at just $699, it's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa. Visit washablesofas.com today and save. That's washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft.

Developers like you are building the future, but you need the right tools to push what's possible. That's where Microsoft comes in. With GitHub Copilot, VS Code, Azure AI Foundry, and more. You have the tools to build your way and bring your ideas to life. You can build confidently, securely, and focus on creating the next big thing. Learn more at developer.microsoft.com slash AI. Microsoft. Yours to build.

Today's episode is brought to you by USPS. I know, I know, you've got your shipping game on lock. But did you know, with USPS Ground Advantage service, it's like your shipment has a direct line to you. You're in the loop the whole time. It leaves the dock, you know about it. It's on the road, boom, you know. And when it reaches your customer, you guessed it, you're in the know again. Here's the real game changer. It's one journey, one partner, total peace of mind.

Check out USPS Ground Advantage service at USPS.com slash in the know, because if you know, you know.