The Little Shop of Horrors

Funny, sexy black comedy shot by "King of the B's" Roger Corman on a landmark budget of 27 000 and in landmark time of only 2 days! Its the funniest movie i've seen from 1960 or before, and between this fact, the fact that it is black comedy, and the fact that it has the charm and lack of pretension of a cheaply made horror movie, its no wonder it has such a huge cult following.

It has the incredibly sexy Jackie Joseph, one of the most buxom lasses i've ever seen, and many risque scenes, which, along with the jazzy soundtrack and black humour, give this a much freer feel than any studio picture of the era, or any picture before. Its humour hasn't aged a bit - and feels quite modern compared to most humour of the day.

As an added curio, this features Jack Nicholson in his first ever appearance in a feature film (he was in one short film before it), as the nerdy, masochistic patient who squeals with delight when the dentist is drilling holes in his mouth and pulling teeth. Though its only a five minute part, its a great part.

The movie is filled with an edgy humour that the remakes (including the broadway musical, which the 1986 film was based on) are too conservative for. I thoroughly recommend it to you.

Corman went on to become one of the most important producers of the century, since he provided opportunities to many young filmmakers in the 70's, whose projects the major studios would never have invested in, and so we would have been deprived of the talents of Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), Martin Scorcese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull), Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) and many others. Corman taught them how to just go out and make a good movie, and make it cheaply - and his major qualification to be able to teach them this, in my opinion, is that he made Little Shop of Horrors.

Here's a movie that's gone from cult classic to just plain classic. For me, it's one of the few "cult classics" I saw when it was released and then first shown on television. I loved it then, and I love it now.

Forget the musical re-make made in the 1980s. It couldn't hold a candle to the original.

"Original" is what this is, too. and nowadays, it's great to have it on DVD in which the audio is clear and the picture pretty sharp.

I have always particularly enjoyed the many humorous lines delivered by Mel Welles, who plays the flower shop owner. He is the real comedian of the cast, although the plant does quite well as do the two leads played by Jonathan Haze and Jackie Joseph. The latter two are a little more subtle in their comedy.

All the characters in here are totally whacked, from Haze's hypochondriac mother to Dick Miller's flower-eating character to the Jewish mother who always has a dead relative to moan about and to the dentist and his patient. The latter, of course, is Jack Nicholson, making his movie debut and looking about 16 years old.

In the end, though, what one remembers most is the plant demanding, over and over, to "Feeeeeed me!!"

For that, the plant and the film never fail to make me laugh.

The picture concerns upon a geeky employee (Jonathan Haze) working in a florist shop called Mushnick (Mel Welles) who brings a carnivorous and ferocious plant developing a bloodthirsty hunger and is forced to murder for human eating .

Horror comedy blending black humor , parody , tongue-in-cheek and horror . The comedy is absurd and cheesy but gets its moments here and there . Incredible cheap but effective visual effects . This is a well known terror-comedy , it's a quickie but was shot for two days and is deemed one of Corman's best and funniest movies ever made although with lack budget . The principal actors and technicians will repeat along with Corman in various films ,in fact, the picture belongs to horror-black comedy sub-genre as ¨A bucket of blood¨ and ¨Creature from the haunted sea¨, both of them written by Charles B. Griffith (who is the voice of ¨Audrie the plant¨ and besides plays the thief) . In the film appears the Corman's ordinary actors as Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Haze and a young newcomer Jack Nicholson in a comic interpretation as a sadomasochistic who receives a especial dental intervention . The picture is remade (1986) as an amused musical comedy by Frank Oz with Steve Martin and Rick Moranis . The flick will appeal to classic and cult movies fans.

'The Little Shop Of Horrors' is one of the movies that Roger Corman's reputation as the "king of the quickies" is founded on. Filmed in two days on a budget less than Spielberg's dinner money, this is one of the all-time b-grade camp classics. While the humour is extremely dated the concept is very black and contemporary. Charles B. Griffith probably deserves as much credit for this movie as Corman. Writing this, 'A Bucket Of Blood', 'The Wild Angels' and 'Death Race 2000' has ensured him movie immortality! Corman semi-regular Jonathan Haze may not be as fondly remembered as Dick Miller, but he is well cast as the klutzy Seymour Krelboyne, "father" of the blood thirsty exotic plant Audrey, and Mel Welles hams it up as his tyrannical boss Mushnick. But the show is stolen by Miller as a flower eating hipster, and an astonishingly fresh faced Jack Nicholson as a masochistic dental patient (a classic bit!), as much as Audrey herself. Forget the crappy 80s musical version, stick with this, the real deal. It is pretty creaky in places but still a lot of fun!

I remember seeing this on a weekly television show called Chiller, when I was in high school. It was one of those local celebrity things, with an emcee presiding over whatever horror movies were in the library of that particular station. I realized quickly, what an offbeat flick this was. It was utterly hilarious with its moments of masochism, the man eating plant, Audrey one and two, and all the other things that Seymour must deal with just to keep going. The plant controls him and it is a hilarious plant. The black and white neutral staging of the plant is so much better than the flashiness of the musical (though I do like some of those songs). The smallness of this film is what helps make it work. Everyone is a caricature. Jack Nicholson's proudest moment. No wonder he is such a wack, spending all that time in his formative years with Roger Corman. The acting works because it is a period piece. No matter how much we try to reproduce the fifties, it always falls short of just seeing the fifties. It's like Dragnet without the strange suits and the slang of the time. It's just more honest because they weren't trying to reproduce it. I haven't watched this in some time, so I think I'll leave my computer and sit down and watch it again.