Dick Miller is Walter Paisley, a nerdy waiter and busboy at a Bohemian cafe teeming with beatniks and colorful hustlers. Paisley is jealous of the swinging social lives of the creative types who hang out at the cafe and wishes he could be a part of their crowd. A twist of fate answers his wish after he accidentally kills his landlady's cat, covers it in clay, and is heralded as a visionary genius. Paisley's work of art (titled "Dead Cat") is such an artistic triumph that he's inundated with requests for more pieces. When a snoopy undercover cop tries to pin a drug-possession charge on Paisley, the cop finds himself on the wrong end of a cast-iron skillet and Paisley discovers a new way to manufacture his art. Bucket of Blood, a wildly comedic horror film, is one of the most interesting and original films of Corman's career and deserves to be regarded as a rediscovered gem. This black-comedy pre-figures another of screenwriter Charles Griffith/Roger Corman collaborations, the much acclaimed The Little Shop of Horrors.

Bumbling busboy Walter Paisley (Dick Miller) works at a beatnik coffeehouse populated by artists, poets, and dope addicts. He longs to belong and, inspired by the poetry around him, tries his hand at sculpting. When he accidentally kills a cat and covers it with clay, it becomes a celebrated work of art. Soon Walter has moved on to killing people and is the hit of the local art scene. Roger Corman regulars Barboura Morris and Anthony Carbone are the couple running the coffeehouse who are first exalted by Walter's success and then rather worried. Director Corman shot this little gem of black comedy in an amazing five days for $50,000. It's since become a true cult classic, practically inventing its own genre and perfectly satirizing the self-righteousness of the then-emerging beatnik movement, not to mention the whole world of contemporary art. Miller lends pathos as Walter, and the rest of the cast is just hilarious, particularly Julian Burton as the pretentious and portly poet whose recitation on the "artist" (accompanied by jazz sax solo) opens the film. Corman reused the same general tone and story for THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS the following year.