..this film. I was often a fan of Dick Miller and his ensemble of characters in American International films, many who also were in Wasp Woman, War of the Satellites, and Little Shop of Horrors. But this was a gross disappointment. Corman tries a tepid effort to build sympathy for Miller as the main character, a waiter in a beatnik coffee shop who feels teased and rejected by the "in crowd" giving him some bizarre motive to plaster over a cat he stabbed by mistake, leaving the knife in! Why wouldn't everyone get suspicious about his sculpture with a knife sticking out of it? He kills a detective (Burt Convy) and plasters him over. Where is the missing persons bureau and a citywide search to find out what happened to him? And using a pizza pan..lethal force for sure. It's no wonder most of Convy's career remained on Match Game and Hollywood Squares quiz shows. What an embarrassment to anyone's resume.

A Bucket of BloodThe problem with hipsters going missing is that everyone just assumes disappearing is now cool.Mind you, the missing cats in this horror movie have been murdered.Walter (Dick Miller) is an unassuming busboy at a beatnik café that longs for the admiration the local poets receive from the girls, especially his co-worker Carla (Barboura Morris).It's not until he kills a cat and casts it in clay that he garners recognition as a sculptor. His next piece is a cop (Bert Convy) that Walter murdered. The killings continue as the accolades roll in. But regrettably Carla remains unimpressed.B-movie maestro Roger Corman's sardonic attack on the 1950s art scene and the beat subculture that fostered it, this tepid thriller is light on blood loss and genuine jolts. Moreover, its suicidal ending is a major cop out.Furthermore, artists are only considered to be scary when they ask for subsidy.Red Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

If you're cruising through the cable channel listings and see this title pop up, how can you give it a pass? Especially when the station presenting it is Turner Classics - they know an awful lot about movies, don't they? This turned out to be another Roger Corman directed, shoestring budget film that's just off-kilter enough to make it a minor cult classic.I thought Dick Miller was perfect for the role of Walter Paisley, trying hard but never succeeding in the beatnik art world until he produces an eye catching sculpture courtesy of his landlady's dead cat. It was pretty convenient that when feline Frankie was pulled out from behind the wall, rigormortis had already set in after only the couple of seconds it took to break through it. I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to wonder how the cat got in there in the first place.Well the Yellow Door Café got it's new artistic wunderkind and it wouldn't take long for the astute viewer to figure out how Walter would make an even bigger splash on the beat scene. If the murders weren't so gruesome, this story could have been an episode on any number of anthology shows of the era like 'The Twilight Zone', 'Thriller' or even 'Way Out', though the better venue might have been 'Tales From the Crypt' a few decades down the road.

This is Often called a Black Comedy. It is Alleged that Director Roger Corman takes the Credit for Inventing the Genre. This Certainly is a Scathing Indictment of the Bohemian Life, Beatniks, and the Art World. But it is so with a Cunning Script that Never Relies on the Cheap and is Humorous only in its Illumination of Pretense as Significance.It is Actually, more Creepy than Funny, and more Morbid than Satiric. The Movie has a Huge Cult Following and is Touted and Proclaimed as Perfect Corman. It Deserves all that and More. Only, Perhaps, Night of the Living Dead (1969), could Eclipse this as the Best Most Inexpensive Movie Ever Made.There is nothing Wasted here and Everything Meshes with Tight Environs, Minimalist Sets, Crackerjack Dialog, and an Unrelenting Tone. The Violence and Murders are anything but Amusing, and the Resulting Works of Art are Horrifying.To make a Near Perfect Picture in 5 Days with such Limitations is Nothing Less Than Remarkable and this Movie has been Remarked About since its Initial Drive-In, Grindhouse Release. It Forever Holds-Up and has Never Lost its Allure. Corman, the Artist, might call this...Movie, Man.