A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman, 1959)

Master of the cheap and cheerful B-movie, Corman was churning out productions at a ridiculous rate in the '50s and '60s, with a highly variable quality level. A Bucket of Blood is at the better end of the range, a sardonic little Twilight Zone-flavoured piece about a nobody who aspires to emulate the local beatnik hipster artists and gets recognition from them as their peer through the accidental killing of his own cat. He is then forced into having to trump his achievement, and things soon go pear-shaped. The dialogue satirising the groovy cats is very funny in places and, while there's not much in it beyond that, it once again demonstrates Corman's ability to make something watchable out of a few bits of string.

5/10