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.
