Metropolis, the Gallery, chugging away in the offbeat Charleston district of Bremerton, is hosting a movie night befitting of the co-op gallery’s avant garde nature.

The gallery will be turned into a beat generation coffee house Nov. 26 for a showing of the classic Roger Corman 1959 horror film, “A Bucket of Blood.”

The event is co-sponsored by Metropolis and SpecialTea Pots, next door to the gallery at 320 N. Callow Ave.

The hosts are trying to make the night as authentic as possible, featuring pillow seating, espresso and other “period style coffee concoctions,” according to Patrick Cooper, Metropolis president.

Attendants are encouraged to come in beatnik costume, all the better to appreciate the movie and entertainment. The evening includes live readings of beat poetry set to the beat of live bongo drums, and “anything else we can think of to capture the spirit of that generation,” Cooper said.

“A Bucket of Blood” producer Corman went on to film “The Little Shop of Horrors” in 1960, another low-budget gem which achieved super-cult status.

The “Bucket” plot bears a striking similarity to “Little Shop,” with a nerdy artist, Walter Paisley, played by Dick Miller, who finds inspiration for his art after a bloody accident — he inadvertently stabs his landlady’s cat, and encases it in plaster to try to hide it. The “representation” brings him accolades from art critics, and the plot escalates when he turns to using humans for his sculptures, much the same way Sidney in “Little Shop” has to keep feeding humans to the insatiable Audrey II.

You get a good plot, why just use it once?

The movie is set in a trendy art house café (hmmm sounds familiar), and is a favorite for the way it pokes fun at the hipness of the beat generation.

SpecialTea owner Jill Coulson couldn’t help throwing in one bad pun about the evening: “ We’re hoping people will ‘beat a path’ to the door and come and enjoy the coffee house atmosphere, the coffee, the readings and the classic cult film.”

The evening starts at 7 p.m. Nov. 26 at Metropolis, the Gallery, 318 Callow Ave. N, Bremerton. The event is free, although food bank donations will be accepted, and there will be prizes for Best Beat Costume and Best Beat Poetry Reading. wu