Nerdy Walter Paisley (Dick Miller), a maladroit busboy at a beatnik café who doesn't fit in with the cool scene around him, attempts to woo his beautiful co-worker, Carla (Barboura Morris), by making a bust of her. When his klutziness results in the death of his landlady's cat, he panics and hides its body under a layer of plaster. But when Carla and her friends enthuse over the resulting artwork, Walter decides to create some bigger and more elaborate pieces using the same artistic process. *"Corman's best work ... hilarious dialogue and a finale reminiscent of Fritz Lang's 'M' ... [this] low-budget comedy horror pic works both as satire at the expense of the Beat generation and as a trenchant little allegory about the New York art world in general." - Tom Tunney and Geoffrey Macnab, **Sight & Sound***