A Bucket of Blood (1995 film)

At a Los Angeles coffee house called the Jabberjaw, several performance artists vie for the attention of Generation X hipsters, including Maxwell (Shadoe Stevens), a poet who declares that "life is nothing but a homeless traveler on the RTD of art", Mayolia (Sheila Travis), who performs monologues holding a toy monkey, Cuff and Link (Victor Wilson and Patrick Bristow), a pair of sarcastic photographers who intentionally run over animals and photograph the road kill, and "Stupid Girl" (Jennifer Coolidge), who strips nude on stage while playing cello. Other regular attendants at the cafe include an older rich couple (Paul Bartel and Mink Stole) looking for art by new talent, and Lou (Kin Shriner), an undercover cop trying to bust heroin dealers operating in the cafe.

Working for Leonard (Sam Lloyd) are busboy Walter (Anthony Michael Hall) and Italian hostess Carla (Justine Bateman). To impress Carla, who he has a crush on, Walter tries to produce a clay sculpture of her face, but is unsuccessful due to his lack of talent. He hears his landlady's cat Frankie in the wall, discovering that the animal had been mistakenly plastered into the wall, and attempts to cut it out with a knife, but accidentally kills it.

The next morning, Walter decides to cover up the dead animal with plaster and presents it as a "thing I made" called Dead Cat. The regulars and other artists love the "sculpture", and Mayolia gives Walter a necklace containing a nickel bag of heroin, leading Lou to follow Walter back to his apartment and confront him about it, which ends with Walter killing Lou with his frying pan, later deciding to hide the body in plaster and call it "Murdered Man". Leonard, having discovered the dead animal in Walter's first "statue", initially tries to call the police upon hearing about "Murdered Man", but covers up the murder, when a customer offers Leonard a large amount of money for "Dead Cat". At a party for Walter, Alice (Darcy DeMoss), who had not been aware of Walter's popularity, insults him, but agrees to pose for his nude statue. At his apartment, Alice taunts Walter, suggesting he is a virgin, and he strangles her to death.

Walter reveals his true feelings for Carla at an art show, only for her to tell him that she doesn't love him, and he immediately asks her to model for him. However, she discovers Walter's dark nature when she finds Alice's body in the nude "sculpture", and runs away from Walter upon learning that he plans to murder her next. Once art critics begin commenting on the "brilliance" of a "creation within a creation", Lou's police partner breaks apart the "statues", revealing the corpses. The officer, along with Walter's friends, run after Walter and Carla, realizing that the artist is a murderer, and, realizing that he is about to be caught, Walter mixes a new batch of plaster, and the cop breaks down the door, revealing to the group that Walter has spattered his body with plaster and hanged himself. The experience leaves Carla mute, Leonard to burn down the Jabberjaw for insurance money and Maxwell to unsuccessfully imitate Walter's "suicide art", dying in the process. Cuff and Link, who always criticized Walter's art and accused him of fraud, finally become successful artists themselves, and live together as roommates, while Mayolia becomes the host of a successful children's television show.

Anthony Michael Hall was cast because of his roles in the Brat Pack films of the 1980s. "That's what people identify him with, for better or worse", said associate producer Darin Spillman. "We were remaking a 1950s film and wanted someone identified with a new generation."[1]

Joe Bob Briggs gave the film four stars, saying, "They hardly changed the flick at all. It's the same goldurn movie."[2] AllMovie's Fred Beldin wrote, "Although executive producer Corman was probably pleased to see his work refashioned with the gratuitous gore and nudity he couldn't use the first time around, Death Artist is fairly pointless."[3]

• A Bucket of Blood at IMDb 
• A Bucket of Blood at AllMovie
• Briggs, Joe Bob (1996). "The Death Artist review". Archived from the original on November 1, 2006.