Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

hyped garbage

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

A young man named Seymour works for a florist and discovers a strange and unusual plant that attracts the locals. However, he later finds the plant is attracted to human blood and flesh and after a series of accidental occurrences, he is forced to feed the plant.Roger Corman is a familiar name in the world of schlock. He filmed Little Shop of Horrors in two days and a night on a budget of $22500. Corman after his first few films created his own company 'New World Pictures', which produced films from the likes of exploitation flicks to foreign arthouse films.Little Shop of Horrors is an excellent comedy horror that takes a schlocky premise and turns it into something clever and endearing. Jonathan Haze is excellent at playing the awkward Seymour, who you really get attached to and feel sorry for as these unfortunate events occur.The film also stars some recognisable faces. Jack Nicholson makes a cameo as a masochist who enjoys pain and getting his teeth ripped out by the dentist. Dick Miller also makes an appearance as a store regular and he's starred in the majority of Joe Dante's films and also makes a show in many eighties films such as 'The Terminator', 'After Hours' and 'Gremlins', just to name a few. Jackie Joseph plays Audrey and coincided with Dick Miller as the Futterman's in Joe Dante's classic 'Gremlins'.The film was later adapted into a famous Broadway musical and got a remake in 1986 directed by Frank Oz. I find Frank Oz's version to be great in its own right, however, I would try to track down the most recent release which reinserts Oz's preferred pessimistic and impressive ending he intended to use originally.

The film has undergone a reboot and has even been made into a musical. Seymour's (Jonathan Haze) plant has a taste for humans. The film spoofs "Dragnet" with Det. Sgt .Joe Fink (Wally Campo) and Det. Frank Stoolie (Jack Warford). Jack Nicholson has a minor role as a creepy masochistic character. Jackie Joseph who played Audrey would later appear in "Gremlins" 1 and 2 and "Police Academy" 2 and 4. She was also the voice for Melody in "Josie and the Pussycats" TV cartoon series. Dick Miller, the man eating carnations would make a living out of playing a character named "Walter Paisley" in a half dozen films or episodes. I enjoyed it, and I can see where the remakes would appeal more to a younger crowd.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is another one of the Roger Corman quickies made on the cheap. This one was shot in just two days and it shows. It's got a one-trick storyline, takes place for the most part in a single set, and with a small group of actors involved, many of whom were Corman regulars. It could have been a load of old rubbish but it works and the major reason for that is down to the interesting, original storyline. Griffith's idea is about a sort-of Venus flytrap plant that feeds on human blood rather than flies; in essence this is a vampire story, but with a plant rather than a human. There were lots of 'killer plant' type stories being churned out in the pulp age of weird fiction and this is just like one of them. Corman chooses to play things for laughs and the result is a quirky comedy with lots of surreal humour involved.Many of the laughs come from the bizarre characters in the film. Jonathan Haze is very good as the dim-witted Seymour and Jackie Joseph shines as the beautiful object of his obsession, Audrey. Mel Welles has fun as the larger-than-life flower shop owner and there are great, minor roles for Corman regulars Jack Nicholson (hilarious as a sado-masochist) and Dick Miller (as a guy who loves eating flowers). The special effects of the killer plant are VERY limited but the ending, with the faces of the victims appearing in the blossoms, is imaginative and slightly disturbing. It's not a film that you'll want to watch more than once, and the musical remake vastly outclassed it in terms of budget and technical proficiency, but the skewed, off-kilter comedy and bizarre storyline make it worth a watch.

No one is going to watch "The Little Shop Of Horrors" and think that it's a masterpiece. It isn't. Really not in any way. The performances are at best OK for the most part, the story is silly, the sets are bare bones, the man-eating plant looks ... well ... not very scary at all. Just silly. But of course, you're making a mistake if you watch this expecting to find a masterpiece. It hasn't become known as a cult classic for no reason. It has pretty much everything you'd want to find in a cult classic. In its silliness, it's fun pretty much the whole way through. Interspersed among the "OK" performances is actually a pretty good one by Mel Welles as Gravis Mushnick, a flower shop owner whose store is on skid row, so he doesn't make much money. When his employee Seymour (Jonathon Haze) develops a new plant, it's a chance for Gravis to make money by getting people into the store to see the new plant and hoping to get them to buy flowers while they're there. Unfortunately, the new plant is a man-eater, and Seymour ends up having to find its food for it. There's a bit of a spoof of the TV show "Dragnet" going on, revolving around a couple of local cops assigned to find the people who've gone missing (after being fed to the plant.) There's even a very early role for Jack Nicholson as a guy who loves having pain inflicted on him by dentists!It's not a masterpiece. Not at all. Not in any way. But it has more than enough going for it to deserve the status of cult classic that it's gained. And you'll never hear the words "Feed Me!" again after watching this and not think about this movie! (6/10)