Review #184: Little Shop of Horrors (1986)


This review was originally written in 2022.

Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #39: Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Yes, the musical. I had to double-check and make sure this bucket list called for the 1986 version rather than the 1960 version (which is NOT a musical), but sure enough, that's the one. At first I thought it was ridiculous for a musical about a singing plant to be on here but after watching it again, trust me, it's WAY more of a horror movie than Room 237 or even something like Spontaneous. Also, the version I watched was the Director's Cut, which has a COMPLETELY different ending, and it was FANTASTIC!

If you've never seen Little Shop (first off, shame on you, second off, you were probably born after 9/11 so I guess you get a pass) it's about a nebbish flower shop worker named Seymour who discovers a mysterious exotic plant that garners him tons of fame and attention, but requires human blood to survive. In order to keep the gravy train running, he turns to murder to keep the (moving, talking, singing) plant alive and to attract his crush, Audrey. Also Bill Murray absolutely steals the show as a masochistic dental patient (which I promise makes sense in-context).

So, obviously it starts off as not-at-all-horror. But the idea of a protagonist being forced into committing unspeakable acts to keep a secret or even to stop his happiness from being taken away is 100% within the realm of horror, and as the story goes on the character of Audrey II (the plant) becomes more and more horrifying. This gets multiplied tenfold by the original ending, which ultimately has the plant becoming a world-destroying kaiju and, in the final shot of the film, tearing through the movie screen to burst into the theater itself. Yes this movie is sappy, yes this movie is silly, yes there's a lot of singing but I had a dopey smile on my face the entire time and the Director's Cut downer ending (which I didn't realize I was watching) made me laugh out loud because it was just so much fun. Don't watch this movie if you're expecting to be scared, but if you want a fantastic time, pop in this golden oldie and let Rick Moranis show you this cool plant he found.

Overall Rating: 10/10 Bullets Fired From A Six-Shot Revolver But A Plant Did It So It's Okay I Guess

Theory About Why They Changed The Ending: So, the "downer" ending was the original ending, when this was an off-Broadway play. But when they made it into a film, test audiences HATED that it didn't end on a happy note, and director Frank Oz theorized that it's because when you see a play, it's okay to kill off any characters you want because the audience is still going to see them take a bow at the end. Not so with film!

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