Very funny B movie by Roger Corman about a hapless busboy who works in a fifties coffee shop and wants more than anything to be accepted by the beatnik in-crowd. He is prevented from doing so, however, by his complete lack of artistic talent (not that most of the regulars are particularly gifted either). After accidentally killing his landlady's cat (rigor mortis setting in immediately, apparently), he decides the best way to cover up his crime is to cover the critter with clay and pass it off as avant-garde art. His hep cat customers are blown away; Walter is delighted to be accepted at last; only to hold their interest he has to keep making sculptures
The film is not particularly scary (and probably wasn't meant to be), but it works very well as a horror spoof and amusing, if occasionally heavy handed, satire on beatnik culture and the modern art scene (although considering that today rotten meat and crucifixes immersed in urine are taken seriously as art it's as though reality has caught up with and outdone satire). The bearded poet Maxwell who writes of cotton gongs and the sour cream of circumstance is, as others have commented, a dead-on parody of the type of writer who to this day can be found at café readings. (He is strangely likable, though, maybe because he is so genuinely enthusiastic about his pretentious poetry). And for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I thought the final scene where Maxwell leads a bunch of other earnest beatniks in a chase after a now completely crazed Walter one of the funniest episodes I've ever seen in a movie.
If you've never seen a Corman film before, this is a good place to start.
The film is not particularly scary (and probably wasn't meant to be), but it works very well as a horror spoof and amusing, if occasionally heavy handed, satire on beatnik culture and the modern art scene (although considering that today rotten meat and crucifixes immersed in urine are taken seriously as art it's as though reality has caught up with and outdone satire). The bearded poet Maxwell who writes of cotton gongs and the sour cream of circumstance is, as others have commented, a dead-on parody of the type of writer who to this day can be found at café readings. (He is strangely likable, though, maybe because he is so genuinely enthusiastic about his pretentious poetry). And for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I thought the final scene where Maxwell leads a bunch of other earnest beatniks in a chase after a now completely crazed Walter one of the funniest episodes I've ever seen in a movie.
If you've never seen a Corman film before, this is a good place to start.