a review of 血流成河

2021 Cult Movie Challenge Week 13: Roger Corman Week As a satire of modern art and boho pretentiousness it's not at all subtle, but Corman makes this one work just by keeping things moving and letting his actors be as broad as needed. It's not quite a masterpiece, but manages to punch above its weight as a zero-budget B-movie. I appreciate how even though Dick Miller's busboy character is presented as basically sympathetic, Corman doesn't turn this into a pat revenge fantasy where the underdog hero turns the tables on a bunch of mean art snobs, like in the ambitious-yet-dumb Joker movie. Instead, Miller shows us a character who doesn't fully understand the harm he's doing, and who sublimates his violence in the desire to be taken seriously as an artist. Seeing how Miller evolves that over the course of the movie is pretty entertaining, and feels like a direct precursor to Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates only a year later.