"A 66-minute joke compounded of beatniks and gore. It's too comic to be a typical horror film and the horror is too explicit for it to be a comedy, but for the youth market at which it's aimed, the feature looks like a winner."
-Variety

"While only marginal as a horror film, Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood excels as both a black comedy and a cagey send-up of the '50s beatnik scene and gives Dick Miller his most memorable role."
-John Charles, Video Watchdog

"Dick Miller gives a performance of sustained poignancy as the half-wit hero."
-Monthly Film Bulletin

"The difficult central role of the crushed timid underdog menial is cleverly played by Dick Miller. Parts of the film, notably the earlier scenes, are a glorious satire on jargon-spouting beatniks and phoney artists, led by a mystic poet who recites to jazz."
-CEA Film Report

"A wonderful beatnik horror comedy...Dick Miller, a familiar Corman stock-company player, is perfect as Walter Paisley...An all-time classic."
- The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film

"This is a marvellous little film which takes some delightful sideswipes at beatnik pretensions (Allen Ginsberg is hilariously caricatured) and breathes rude life into a story that neither Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) nor House of Wax (1953) was quite able to animate. Miller...is wonderfully deadpan as the half-witted waiter..."
- The Encyclopedia of Horror Movies

"Corman's first full-blooded horror comedy was put in a class of its own by Charles Griffith's unusually witty script...Not surprisingly, the parody of the 'beat scene'...is closer to the truth than those attempted in many mainstream movies."
- TimeOut Film Guide

"Heavy handed spoof with a few choice if bloody moments"
- Halliwell's Film & Video Guide

"Zestful Corman quickie spoofing the 1950s beatnik movement as well as House of Wax-type horror films. Miller is terrific in his signature role...It runs out of steam before it reaches its climax, but is a nice precursor to Corman's even cheaper classic, The Little Shop of Horrors..."
- James O'Neill, Terror on Tape

"...an exercise in dark humor...Charles B. Griffith's hip, flip script is full of amusement, such as when a newsboy croaks, "Read all about the man cut in half! Police can find only part of the body!"
- John Stanley, Creature Features

"Corman and Griffith's interpretation is as a gleeful black comedy which happily jibes at the pretence of the Beat Generation. It's amusing, although the script is told with a minimalist economy that brings a smile rather than a real laugh. Dick Miller plays with likeably nebbish lunacy."
- Richard Scheib, The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review

"Miller, who manages to sustain a sense of poignancy while committing his atrocities, gives an excellent performance in this funny film with a good comical jazz score by Fred Katz."
- TV Guide

Compiled by David Kalat & Jeff Stafford