Title: A Bucket of Blood
Year: 1959
Genres: Horror; Comedy; Cult; Satire
Director: Roger Corman

Cast:

• Dick Miller as Walter Paisley
• Barboura Morris as Carla
• Antony Carbone as Ramon
• Juliet Mills as Daisy
• Jack Nicholson as Eric “The Great”
• R.G. Armstrong as Mr. Williams
• Mike Farrell as Detective

Synopsis:

Walter Paisley, an awkward busboy at a beatnik café, longs to be accepted by the hip artists who frequent the spot. After accidentally killing his landlady’s cat and covering the body in clay as a sculpture, his “art” is hailed as a masterpiece. Emboldened, Walter begins murdering muses and fellow bohemians, preserving their corpses in plaster to create lifelike statues. As his fame—and body count—grows, the café’s patrons indulge his twisted work until a detective’s investigation—and a final shocking “exhibit”—threaten to expose his crimes.

Trivia:

• One of the earliest film appearances of Jack Nicholson, playing a pretentious poet.
• Made on a budget of under $50,000 and shot in five days, it became a defining title of Corman’s Poe-inspired series.
• The title is a dark pun: “bucket of blood” was slang for a cheap, seedy bar, here twisted into gruesome literalism.
• Inspired by European art-house films and the bohemian subculture, it satirizes pretentiousness in mid-century American art scenes.
• Entered the public domain due to a failure to renew its copyright, leading to widespread TV and home-video circulation.