A Bucket Of Blood (1959)

Around this time Roger Corman was good for directing about five movies a year but in 1959 he only did two. One of those movies was A Bucket Of Blood, A comedic horror movie that takes a jab and pokes fun at the Bohemians and Beatniks. Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) is a waiter at a common hang out for the artsy and the fartsy (Bohemians), called The Yellow Door and he doesn't quite fit in due to his lack of brains and artistic abilities. Walter has a crush on a girl who works at the Yellow Door and he fantasises about being one of the hipster-elite and winning her over. The crowds opinion changes on Walter when they see his new sculpture... Walter calls it "Dead Cat" and the Bohemians don't know that Walter accidentally killed his landladies cat and tried to cover it up by molding clay around it. The cat has a knife sticking out of it and people seem to find it a morbid piece of genius art. Walter becomes more and more popular as he shows each new sculpture and of course each new sculpture means a new murder. Walter Paisley quickly moves on to humans and becomes self absorbed with his new life and claim to fame. He tries hard to look and act like the people whom he seeks approval of and its great to see Dick Miller with silly scarfs and Barret's on. Due to the fact that this is a 50's B&W film there really isn't much blood in the movie but its still a fun fast paced B-Movie. We get a frying pan to head murder and the body is drained of blood into a bucket, Hence the title A Bucket Of Blood. We also get a strangulation by Beatnik-Scarf scene, A decapitation by table saw and a hanging. "I suppose he would have called it hanging man. Its possibly his greatest work."
My personal favorite director, Herschell Gordon Lewis did a great ripoff gore version of this movie called Color Me Blood Red. Both films are highly recommended.