A Bucket of Blood is a 1959 comedy horror B-Movie directed by Roger Corman and written by Charles Griffith.
Walter Paisley (played by Dick Miller, aka that fellow from Gremlins and Demon Knight) is a busboy at a beatnik coffee house who wants to be in on the scene but is a total dork. One day, he accidentally kills a cat with plaster––no, not a "cat" like a guy, a literal feline, dig?––and becomes a popular artist from the results. Eventually he resorts to homicidal measures in order to keep his newfound fame.
The set for this movie was reused for Corman's next collaboration with Griffith, The Little Shop of Horrors.
Was remade in 1995, under the direction of MADtv's Michael McDonald and starring Anthony Michael Hall as Walter, and got a musical adaptation in 2009.
This film contains examples of;
- Author Avatar: People have speculated that Walter is one for Roger Corman — an artist unable to be recognized by his peers. Corman has laughed it off, and noted that it's possible but wasn't intentional.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Paisley's first kill in the movie is a cat he covers with plaster and presents as an art piece. Downplayed as it’s a genuine accident; he was trying to cut him out of the wall and, by chance, stuck the knife in the part of the wall where he was.
- Big Bad: Walter Paisley, a waiter who makes sculptures out of corpses.
- Bloodless Carnage: Despite the title of the movie, the kills aren't particularly graphic. Justified, given the time at which the film was made.
- Driven to Suicide: Walter, unable to bear the guilt of what he's done, hangs himself after covering himself in plaster. Maxwell proclaims it his greatest work, and remarks that Walter would have named it "Hanging Man."
- Foreshadowing: Several people comment on how hot it is in Walter's apartment, but he insists it has to stay that temperature for the clay to preserve. Sure enough, once his sculptures are placed in a room temperature setting for his exhibit, it doesn't take long for people to start chipping at the plaster and noticing the human flesh underneath them, exposing Walter's crimes.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Alice is a regular visitor to the Yellow Door but nobody enjoys her presence there, and her obnoxious, entitled personality makes it pretty clear why. In fact, Walter comes to hate her so much that she becomes his first intentional murder for a sculpture.
- Gaining the Will to Kill: Walter gets there in an encounter with Lou over a vial of heroin he'd been passed.
- Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death: There are no actual buckets of blood (or art pieces titled "Bucket of Blood", regardless of what the poster shows) at any point of the film. It is very representative of where Walter gets his art inspiration, though.
- Human Resources: Sculptures made of corpses.
- If I Can't Have You…: All but stated with Walter’s asking Carla to “model” for him after she turns down his wedding proposal.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Walter is a dark example who'll resort to murder to stay in with the beatniks.
- Mad Artist: Walter makes sculptures out of corpses.
- Refuge in Audacity: Walter doesn't try very hard to hide the origins of his first sculpture, saying that "it wasn't very hard, all I had to do was cover it in clay" and when asked if he can make another says "But I don't have another cat". Of course, all of his beatnik appreciators just laugh these off as jokes.
- The Sociopath: Walter Paisley, a nerd who is so desperate for recognition that he's willing to kill people and make art from their corpses.
- Screen-to-Stage Adaptation: Annoyance Theatre produced a musical in 2009. Glenn Slater wrote a looser adaptation, Beatsville, a year earlier. A third musical was produced for the La Mirada Theater in 2023, under the name Did You See What Walter Paisley Did Today?
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Naolia, the girl who slips Walter a vial of heroin is directly responsible for his Gaining the Will to Kill and becoming a murderer.
- Villainous Breakdown: After Walter is exposed as a murderer, he starts hallucinating the voices of his victims swearing revenge, which combined with panic at being pursued leads to him killing himself to avoid facing punishment.
- Villain Protagonist: We follow Walter, a guy so desperate to make beatnik friends that he kills people and animals to make sculptures from their bodies.
- The X of Y
