A Bucket of Blood

A black comedy Roger Corman shot in five days. Walter works as a waiter in a café. The café is where the beatnik crowd of the period gathers: poetry is read, jazz plays and everyone talks about art. Walter wants to be an artist and can do nothing. One night he accidentally kills his neighbour's cat. In a panic he covers it in clay, and a sculpture results. He takes it to the café and everyone praises the work. Walter is suddenly at the centre of the scene. Then new pieces start being asked for. The target is not horror but the art scene itself: an environment where nobody really looks, everyone praises, and reputation is handed out on the strength of a rumour. It was made with Corman's known method: a very short shoot, standing sets and a low budget. Dick Miller plays Walter, and it became the best-known part of his long career. Charles B. Griffith wrote the script; a year later the pair made The Little Shop of Horrors by the same method. One of the more enjoyable examples of its kind for anyone who likes black comedy and low-budget cinema. For a viewer expecting horror, the film is essentially satire and the element of dread is limited.