A Bucket of Blood (1959)

"Attention. Attention, everyone! As you passed through these yellow portals I'm sure you noticed on your right a small clay figure and assumed this transfixed effigy to be the work of a master sculptor. And indeed, so it is. That master sculptor is in our midst. He's none other than Walter Paisley, our very own busboy, whose hands of genius have been carrying away the empty cups of your frustration."

- Maxwell H. Brock

A Bucket of Blood is a low-budget 1959 horror/comedy written by Charles B. Griffith and directed by Roger Corman. It was released theatrically in the US on October 21st, 1959. This comic satire was shot in a period of five days with a budget of $50,000. The movie was remade in 1995 under the title The Death Artist. The film stars Dick Miller as an impressionable and socially inept busboy named Walter Paisley, who works in a trendy Bohemian café called The Yellow Door. After being influenced by the 1950s beatnik movement, Walter finds himself as an aspiring artist who creates amazing life-like clay sculptures. What his fans have yet to realize though is that Walter's pieces are not only based on actual people - they're made from them too!

Plot
Walter Paisley is a simple-minded busboy and aspiring artist employed by a trendy beatnik café known as The Yellow Door. Amiable and soft-hearted, Walter admires the various painters and poets who frequent the establishment, in particular, a poet named Maxwell H. Brock. Walter is also secretly in love with one of the clubs patrons, a young woman named Carla. Unfortunately, Walter is largely ignored by the club's regulars and doesn't even receive any respect from Leonard de Santis, owner of The Yellow Door.

After a night of work, Walter returns to this apartment. His landlady Mrs. Swickert asks Walter if he has seen her missing cat, to which Walter responds, "No". Inside his apartment, he hears the sound of the cat scratching about inside the walls. He has no idea how the animal managed to get behind the plaster, but he tries to free him by cutting away a section of the wall. Unfortunately, when Walter plunges his knife into the wall, he accidentally stabs the cat, killing it. He is too frightened to tell Mrs. Swickert the harrowing news about her pet. Instead, Walter decides to incorporate the dead animal into his artwork. He encases the cat, as well as the knife still sticking through its body, in a thin layer of modeling clay.

The following day, Walter brings his cast sculpture to The Yellow Door and shows it to Carla and Leonard. Leonard is not particularly impressed with Walter's artistic efforts, but Carla thinks that it is a wonderful piece. Nonetheless, Leonard promises to try and help Walter out by selling the sculpture, which Walter appropriately calls "Dead Cat". Maxwell H. Brock is quite impressed with Walter's ability and thinks that he is a natural talent. With Maxwell's ringing endorsement, the other patrons of the club suddenly come to adore Walter. He is treated with smiles, respect and admiration. Leonard gets frustrated over all the attention that Walter is receiving and tells him to take the rest of the night off.

As he begins to walk out the door, a woman named Naolia approaches him and gushes over his supposedly "artistic genius". She feels the need to give something to Walter in recognition of his talent and slips him a bottle filled with heroin. Walter has no idea what he is now carrying inside his pocket.

An undercover police officer inside the club, Lou Raby, witnesses the incident and follows Walter to his home. Walter lets Raby inside who then accuses him of being part of a drug ring. Walter has no idea what he's talking about and Lou pulls a gun on him, threatening to arrest Walter. Holding a skillet, Walter grows frantic and believes that Lou is going to shoot him. He panics, and in self-defense, bashes Raby across the temple with the skillet, killing him. Unable to dispose the body without alerting Mrs. Swickert, Walter covers Raby's remains with clay.

The next day, Leonard is moving "Dead Cat" from its resting place when he accidentally drops it. A piece of clay chips off, revealing the fur of the cat beneath it. Leonard now knows that Walter is a fraud and is ill at ease with the grotesque statuary.

That evening, the club patrons ask Walter about his next piece of art. He tells Carla and Leonard that he just completed a sculpture that he calls "Murdered Man". He invites them over to his apartment to show it to them. Knowing how Walter composed his first piece, Leonard is now gravely worried about what went into the creation of "Murdered Man". They go over to Walter's place and he unveils his statue, revealing a clay figure of a man with grotesque features and a gaping head wound. Carla thinks its a masterpiece. Leonard grows visibly ill and he realizes that he is actually staring at a dead person. Regardless, he says nothing to raise an alarm. Without revealing what he knows, he tries to discourage Walter from creating any more artwork.

The following night, Walter returns to The Yellow Door, but not as a busboy. He arrives adorned in the latest beatnik fashions and sits at a table. Maxwell H. Brock and several other artists join him and congratulate him on finally becoming an artist. One woman, a model named Alice comes by, but unlike the others, holds no true appreciation for Walter. She is rude and condescending, but offers to pose nude for him for a fee of $25.00 an hour.

Walter goes to Alice's apartment later that evening and tells her that he will accept her offer if she is still willing to pose for him. She follows Walter back to his place and removes her clothing. Walter has her place a scarf about her neck, but then uses it to strangle her to death. As with Lou Raby, Walter encases Alice in clay as his next masterpiece.

The next morning, Walter goes to Maxwell's house where he finds the poet entertaining his friends over breakfast. He unveils his new statue and as before, everyone is overwhelmed by Walter's apparent talent. Maxwell tells him that he is renting out The Yellow Door for the evening and holding a special celebration in Walter's honor.

The party proves quite successful and Maxwell dedicates a new poem to Paisley called "Walter is Born". Walter is having the time of his life, absorbing the mass adoration of the café patrons. The only one who does not share in the revelry is Leonard, who knows the horrible truth behind Walter's artwork. Having consumed copious amounts of alochol, Walter begins stumbling back to his apartment. He comes upon a construction site where a man is working with a circular saw. Having easily come to terms with how he creates his art, Walter attacks the worker and decapitates him with his own saw. He then brings the head back to his place and turns into his next sculpture.

He brings the sculpture to Leonard's place and shows it to him the following day. Again, Leonard is repulsed by what Paisley is doing and now realizes that not only is he using the dead for his art, but that he is callously murdering people to do it. Leonard realizes that the only way to get Arthur to stop is to make his dreams quickly become a reality. He decides to hold an invitation only gallery of Walter's work at his café. He hopes that the fame and recognition will help get Walter's sudden artistic flair out of his system.

Meanwhile, Walter meets with Carla and musters the courage to express his true feelings for her. Carla is flattered, but does not reciprocate Walter's obvious admiration. Walter is devastated. In the hopes of softening his pain, Carla offers to model for him. With a sinister tinge to his voice, Walter accepts the offer.

The art exhibit proves to be a masterful success and all four of Paisley's sculptures are put on display. Maxwell gives him strong words of encouragement. While Walter hobnobs with the other guests, Carla closely inspects the "Alice" statue. Some of the clay flakes off of the figure's fingers and Carla sees a human fingernail beneath it. She discovers that this is truly Alice's dead body realizes that when Walter offered to "turn her into a statue", he meant so literally. Horrified, Carla runs screaming from the establishment. Walter begins chasing after her. The others examine "Alice" and come to the same conclusion as Carla. Decrying Walter Paisley as a murderer, they storm out of The Yellow Door to track him down.

Walter is unable to capture Carla, so he returns to his apartment. He knows the police will soon be after him and decides to hide where nobody will find him. He covers his body in clay and hangs himself, in a way, turning himself into his own final masterpiece.

Notes & Trivia

 * This is the first of five films in which Dick Miller plays a character named Walter Paisley. The next iteration of Paisley appears in Joe Dante's 1976 thriller Hollywood Boulevard.


 * Filmed on location in Los Angeles, California.


 * Was shot in a period of five days.

Taglines
Inside every artist... lurks a mad man!

You'll be sick, sick, sick - from laughing!

A new dimension in horror!

A comedy of errors! A comedy of terrors!

The picture that'll make you... sick, sick, sick with laughter!

You'll be sick - from laughing!