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popculturebuffet · 7 months

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Little Retrospective of Horrors: The Original Corman Film (Comission for Emma Fici)

Happy halloween all you happy people! For those new here i'm jake and I review various media and for this halloween we have a special event as I take a look at all three major versions of Little Shop of Horrors.

This retrospective came about as a result of my love of the 1986 Frank Oz Film adapting the musical. It's one of my favorite films and was a favorite of mine long before I properly got into horror a few years ago. And while originally it was JUST going to be the mean green mother from outer space itself, the project slowly grew much like Audrey II/Junior itself into what it always should have been: A full look at the three pillars of this franchise and how it evolved , grew and eventually took Manhattan. And Peoria. And Demoines, and clevland, and where you live.

So first up is the original film by King of The Low Budget Film, Emperor of On Time, and mentor to countless film legends Roger Corman. Corman is someone who i've slowly become fasicnated by and plan to watch more of his work.

Originally I just saw Mr. Corman as a low budget schlockmeister who made whatever would make him money with a neat title and misleading poster. And he's simply not just that.. he's the KING of the low budget schlockmeisters, the master of his craft. Corman was famous for making his films on time, often under budget, and fast as possible in an industry where that's INCREDIBLY hard to do and still make an enjoyable product.

Granted part of the under budget part was his cheapness: The man would reuse props, sets, whatever he could to save a buck. His films were made not just on a budget of a paper clip and a piece of string but often reusing bits of the same paper clip and string. The man would stretch every dollar like they were reed richards. It's a mix of admirable and sketchy as hell: On the one hand the fact the man could still make decent effects or lovingly clunky ones with such a low budget is admirable.. on the other he underpaid his actors if he could which is not a good look in the slightest, especially with the SAG AFTRA strike going on at the time of this review.

That being said while Corman was a cheap bastard sure, he wasn't a total bastard, working hard with his actors and crew and helping mentor the younger set on his sets so they'd learn the craft well. It's telling that legends like Ron Howard, Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Copolla, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme and James Cameron were not only all mentored by the guy but have nothing but great things to say about him. Dante in particular really loved the man and made a point to use his staple actor Dick Miller in his own films. His impact on the industry cannot be overstated and he's STILL working as a producer to this day. The guy has his faults, again he REALLY should've paid his actors fair wages... but I can't deny he fostered a whole generation of talent or had a genuine love for his cast, as well as a love of women: While he'd gladly make fanservicy films, as the decades went on he made a point of putting women in the lead and was more prone than most producers to giving women a turn at the camera in the 70's and 80's.

It's also hard, even with his cheapness, to not admire how he bucked the hollywood system: at the time the studio system nightmare was falling apart, with courts forcing studios to sell their theaters. As a result Corman could offer his films decently cheap to distributors, and make a quick buck.

Little Shop was one of these films

See Corman had just finished making Bucket of Blood, another low budget horror comedy, and thus shopped around ideas to reuse the sets. After having to nix one starring a cannibal chef due to the hayes code, aka the 1950's and 60's equilvent of

So writer Charles P Griffith came up with a workaround that was goofy enough but still bloodtastic: a man eating plant. Thus the sets were converted and Little Shop of Horrors was born.

Famously the film was mostly shot in two days. They also did some night shots outside of the famous two days, but it's still bonkers and impressive they shot most of a film in only two days, with three days rehearsal.

The film did.. fine. Corman managed to staple it onto another feature after struggling with distribution and used neat tactics like doing short runs on college campuses, the perfect home for low budget wonderfully cheesy horror frankly. So he got his money back as always. But the film REALLY took off once it started running on tv, an easy film to run on creature features and eventually part of the public domain. It's why you can find the film on youtube and most streaming services and find plenty of grumpy amazon reviews mad they got "lied to" about what film they were buying because they didn't bother to check what film they were buying. As a result the film became a cult classic... and eventually a musical. But that's a story for next time, for now let's look at the original and see how it stands on it's own vines after all this time.

Watching this film was something long overdue for me: I had heard about it as a tween, researching it on wikipedia but I never really sought it out despite my deep love of the 86 film. It's weird too as it's not like it was hard to find: walmart and various other stores tended to have cheap copies of it pop up since the film somehow fell into the public domain. I simply just either didn't care or had other things to spend my money on. It just never occured to me. It may of simply been that for most of my life I wasn't a horror fan so I just never thought to seek it out. Samesies for the musical, though at least with a stage show I simply didn't think to look on youtube or the corners of the net for a good recording.

It wasn't till watching the Dead Meat Podcast episode on it that I finally decided to just buckle down and actually watch the film. And i'm glad I did as it's neat to see the same premise, an average dork working at a flower shop in 1960 (Or 61 for the musicals), works with a cranky father figure and his crush at a struggling flower shop. The shop turns around when his latest strange and intresting plant he's worked on brings in customers.. but also has a catch: the plant wants blood and he dosen't have more than enough.

The big difference is tone. The musical is purposfully cheestastic, from the wardrobe to both villians, Orin and Audrey II, being large hams beyond any earthly measure, and the comedy is a nice mix of goofy comedy like the "Dentist!" number with black comedy based on the situation, my faviorite bit of which being Tooey's glee when Seymour angrily suggests "What do you want me to do slit both my wrists?" A nice bit that's funny, disturbing, and tells our hero just what kind of monster her's created. What grounds it is the characters: Seymour is a down on his luck nerd working a dead end job who either tragically turns from decent person to self serving monster and only backpedals too late, or a decent person slowly doing worse and worse things due to circumstance who either only NEARLY learns his lesson too late, or once again is far too late to avoid the tragedy to come depending on the cut. Audrey has a unique and goofy high pitched voice.. but her abuse and self loathing is taken dead seriously. And the deaths themselves likewise are all tragic. Even the abusive shitstain that is Orin dies pathetically choking on his own gas begging for help as he slowly realizes the only person who CAN help him won't.

In sharp contrast the original Corman film.. is goofy as all hell and intentinally too. What's a tragedy on broadway and in the 80's movie.. is a farce here. The characters are slightly broader, the premise stupid and the murders played for pure black comedy.

As a result Semyour is less one of horror's biggest woobies or a tragic cautionary tale, and more a dumb goofus whose on the cusp of being fired from his failing job. Mushnik's treatment of Seymour in the 80's film is sad, his only parent left constantly abusing him for simply being a bit clumsy at worst despite working damn hard and genuinely respecting the man.

Here the genuine respect remains.. but you can undrestand why Gravis hates semyour here: instead of taking his failures out on someone who didn't deserve it, he's enraged by someone constantly fucking up at their job and making his attempts to save his shop from closing down HARDER simply by existing. The best example of this is the very incident that gets seymour fired: he has to cut some flowers for the local dentist, Dr. Phobeus Farb, whose just as much of a sadistic asshole as his musical counterpart, minus any connection to Audrey. Seymour cuts them.. but rather than just hold the two flowers together and cut the diffrence to make them match, he keeps noticing their mismatched and then cutting it lower till he eventually has just the buds and a pink slip.

Seymour hits just the right amount of comedic stupidity: he's utterly incompitent to the point his clumisiness later KILLS people , a lot, and his brain power

Isn't the most impressive. You get WHY Gravis hates him, but you can also see why Audrey has a thing for him: he's got a charming innocence to him. I also love his outfit

He ONLY keeps his job thanks to the best character in the film: Burson Fouch. Burson is absent from the other adaptations, loosely adapted into christopher guest's weird as hell customer guy. And it's a bit of a shame as Burson is a lot of fun. He's played by Dick Miller, Corman and Joe Dante Regular and loveable character actor I honestly didn't even realize was the guy in gremlins till watching the Kill Count on Bucket of Blood, done in honor of Miller's passing.

Fouch is what you'd EXPECT to be a one off joke character with a simple gimmick that I find utterly hilarous: he casually eats flowers. And not edible ones, which I found out while researching this are a thing it turns out, no just casual gardenias. The way he just casually brings it up, Mushnik looking utterly baffled before deciding "eh why not" (His exact words" and the coup de grace, the guy just pulling out a salt shaker and eating them in the background is great.

Fouch however ends up being a major engine of the plot, and shows up in most shop scenes, the part clearly made for him after Miller turned down Seymour. WHen Seymour tries to bring up his "Strange and intresting plant" to keep his job, it's Fouch who convinces Mushnik the stupid plan will actually work. And it's done organically too: Fouch is a Flower Foodie, and thus has traveled the world and seen this work. We even get another fantastic gag out of it

Fouch: I Knew one guy had a whole wall covered in ivy Mushnik: And it made him rich? Fouch (Casually): No he itched himself to death in an insane asylum.

Fouch is the reason Seymour brings Audrey Junior here. And yes that's as weird to type as it is to read. It's here we get the biggest thing the musical changed basic setup wise: Seymours Mom, a hypochondriac whose there... whose there for.. she's there because.. she's...

The bits with her just aren't funny. I think the intention at the tim ewas "Get it she's kinda nuts, that's funny right" but nowadays she comes off as having Munchahusen's syndrome and of either needing help or for Seymour to get away from her, as she constantly feeds both of them food that's allegedly healthy, to the point Seymour is UTTERLY BAFFLED when he has a pb and j with audrey late in the film and it's just.. to eat. It comes off way more messed up than they intended. Her roll in the film is to not want audrey to marry seymour so he leaves, and to faint at the climax. That's about it. Her actress does do her best, she's just not a well written character and is one of the down spots in this comedy.

At any rate Seymour brings in Audrey Junior.. which is still weird to type but is a nice gag. I can see why they changed it in the play as it works for the tone here.. but not so much for the name of their main villian there. Here Junior isn't an alien bent on conquest, but a crossbreed of a venus flytrap and a bullwort Seymour got and raised.. and as you'd expect finds out late at night needs blood. The blood helps Junior grow.. but as always Seymour's a tad tapped out.

It's here where things mostly pivot: Aside from some narration from a cop whose barely in the film for a half assed dragnet spoof, so far the film and the musicals line up decently enough: the shop is dying, seymour brings in twooey/junior to fix it, he feeds it with his fingers before realizing that just wont' do forever.

The diffrence is in HOW they get fed. In the film and musical Seymour seeks out his first target, is either talked into the second or gladly does it to save his own ass, and the third is a tragedy. Here.. the death's are just straight up wacky shenanigans. Every one of them barring the last is just some goofy accident that happened because Seymour was just out living his life. I'm still not entirely sure he wasn't clumsily accidental murdering people his whole life and this just happened to be the first time he noticed. This first death isn't even remotely his fault: he's simply throwing stones at a bottle some guy left on a rail, not aware the guy is around and simply asleep or something, and accidently pegs him and gets him run over with a train when the weirdo stands up. Granted he takes the flying leap to feed the body to his plant, but unlike the musical versions, he's not at all culpable. it was just a wacky accident. In fact unlike the musical version while Audrey is Sapient.. they aren't manipulating seymour. He tries not to feed it and only keeps doing so because he keeps wandering into crime scenes that look very bad for him. Their really just an animal for most of the runtime. Towards the end of the film they gain hypnotisim powers

And make Seymour go get them food, and they won't shut up during a date.. but in the former case it's clear Corman just needed another ten minutes on the runtime and in the latter Seymour himself ruined it by not you know.. not letting audrey could know the plant could talk. And given it only gives a few one liners before it's hypno antics at most, he has NO risk in telling her.

It's really just an animal that wants to be fed. Even the Hypnosis Bullshit is just a way for it to eat. The worst it does is snark to Mushnik "he looks fat enough" when asking to be fed. It's a take I like too, that the threat our heroes face, is their own incompetence (Seymour) and greed (Mushink). It also adds to the comedy, that this whole thing really woudln't keep happening if these two weren't stupidly keeping the murder plant around for their own selfish benefits.

That also brings us to another big diffrence: Mushnik himself. He's not only one of the funniest parts of the film, with his frantic outbursts and comical overeactions being comedy gold, paticuarlly when he declares Seymour son.. then disowns him when it looks like Audrey Junior's going to die.. he's also the deutragonist. In the musical he's largely blind to what Seymour's up to and learning it gets him killed either due to Seymour's greed or his own depending on the version. Here he finds out quickly, being witness to Seymour feeding audrey the railcar guy.. which also gives us the most chilling shot of the film and the one really creepy moment: Seymour giving the man's bloody foot to audrey.

What's neat is that Mushnik DOSEN'T kill audrey.. but also dosen't want people to die. Granted he dosen't know Seymour isn't doing the murder parts intentionally, but he veiledly asks semyour if audrey junior is all grown up, and asks again if Junior is full after another murder, before deciding to watch the plant himself. While he makes the very dumb mistake of keeping Junior around, I do like how active Gravis is: he TRIES to stop these murders best he can, and instead of just stupid logic, it's his own greed that keeps Junior alive, which is a character flaw rather than a flaw. I WILL say that having a very jewish character's main flaw be greed is

But it's a 1960's kind of yeesh, though many critics at the time did not care for that. However Mushnik is still a guy who tries his damndest to stop all the killing and tries to save Seymour by going along with the cops at the end to try and get them to you know, not kill him or something. He's an intresting character who lights up the screen every time shows up.

Getting back to the murders the next is The Deeennnnttttiiiiiisttttttt. Unlike the musicals where Seymour is going SPECIFICALLY to unalive the guy for being the worst, here he actually has a tooth ache. And in this case the murder's self defense, as Dr. Farb , much like his sucessor Orin, gets off on the pain he inflicts and plans to pull as many of Seymour's teeth as he can and saves the last one for laughs. He's a diffrent SORT of sadist from Orin in how he does it. Orin gets high as balls, thrills and revels in it. He knows he's an asshole and he'll gladly sing about it at length.

Farb on the other hand dosen't seem to get he's a bit off and shoudln't be practicing dentstiry, asking Seymour "Whose the dentist here you or me. Naughty boy Seymour practicing dentistry without a licensee." He's a loveable ham, and his exit suits that, with Seymour defending himself with a dental thing leading to a DENTAL SWORDFIGHT. I.. I love this job so much sometimes. Seymour accidently stabs him but like.. the guy might of killed him with pure neglegence.

This also leads to the appearance of the films most notable actor, Mr Jack Nicholson in his first roll. And despite being his first roll my god does the man nail it. Not enough to justify this 80's era box art

Where he's both drawn to look like his later self more and is holding a plant not at all like audrey and somehow billed over Dick Miller. But he's still one of the film's highlights easily. He plays a smiling masochist with this lon chaney style voice, Wilbur Force. WIlbur is delightfully off, badly wanting his apointment and happily reading pain magazine. Seymour is forced to pull it, and his teeth and it's VERY obvious that much like his later successor played by comedy legend and unprofessional asshole bill murray, he's INTO this. Nichelson REALLY nails the roll and while I get why this part isn't in the stage show, as Orin's death is even grislier there, i'm REALLY happy Oz put a version of this character into his movie.

The next victim is a burglar. While Seymour and Audrey have dinner at his place, Mushinik plans not to feed the plant.. but given the guy plans to rob him, the place was barely alive before Junior, and the guy you know, casually robs the place, it's not hard to blame him. It's an easy slip up to make.

The final victim.. is easily the weakest part of the film. As I said it's VERY clear the film ran short as they mention early Junior only needs to have three meals, like a flytrap. He ends up needing a fourth because the running time got padded out. So we get the goofy hynotism stuff which is just not goofy enough to really work and dosen't fit. The bhit after is also just.. eh. A sex worker, Lenora Clyde keeps following Seymour because he dosne't notice her. I don't think Roger Corman knows how sex work, hypnotisim, or dentistry works, but Seymour ends up killing her and feeding her to the plant.

The climax is decent: a fancy lady is having a sunset celebration to give seymour an award, with all the main cast minus dick miller present. That includes two giggling teenagers who convinced their school comittee to use Mushik's to buy the flowers for their float.

The reveal of Audrey's buds' opening up.. is mildly chiling, the faces of all of the victims on them in this weird uncanny valley type translation. It's a nice reveal. It's undrecut however as we get a nearly 5 minute chase with the police that acomplishes nothing> Seymour escapes and we get the real climax of him climbing into Junior to kill it.. and as his successor would learn, that not quite worknig, becoming a bud himself that wails out a "I didn't mean it" before dying. Granted his chopping could've killed it or Audrey Junior just died, but it's still a nice, weird, tragic ending.

Overall The Little Shop of Horrors is a pretty solid horror comedy. The third act isn't very good... but the first two are fun, most of the jokes land and those that don't are fun on just how goofy they are. The cast gets what their in and has fun with it accordingly and while it's super cheap the audrey junior puppet mostly works. Granted it's really jus ta shell filled with whatever craft suplies Corman could get, but the actual pupetry bits, while rare, are really impressive for his budget, and the cotton all inside gives Audrey 2 this unerving feeling when it' smouth is open, like this otherworldly jungle has opened up in this store. It's a fun film and I highly recommend watching it this spooky season. Thanks for reading and i'll have the next part in the next two weeks as Little Shop of Horrors goes off broadway!

#little shop of horrors #halloween #the little shop of horrors #roger corman #dick miller #seymour krelborn #audrey II #audrey junior #jack nicholson #horror

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