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Little Shop of Horrors (1961)

Little Shop of Horrors (1961)

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is a funny movie!!
Review: I remember watching this when Saturday nights turned to Sunday mornings on KHJ TV's (Los Angeles) "Seymour's Fright Night." Though the sound is bad (at least on the VHS because it is an old movie and the tape is recorded in EP mode- maybe the DVD us clearer), listen carefully to all the lines because they are hilarious! This is one of the most offbeat and amusing movies I've ever seen and while it looks like it was indeed shot in two days, it makes no difference. It's a lot of fun.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A guilty pleasure
Review: I'll be honest. I love this movie. I bought it because my six-year-old son and three-year-old daughter love it, but I had selfish reasons as well. It's fun, funny, and entirely tongue-in-cheek. We all love the music and the story. Rick Moranis is great, Ellen Green is perfect, and you can't help but love Steve Martin as the dentist. If you have any sense of fun in you, get this movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: great movie, lousy copy
Review: If you've never seen Little Shop but love humor on the edge, this is more than worth the money (though I bought the same copy from another source for a dollar less).

But, if you love film, this copy is abysmal, not even close to Corman's original. There's dirt on the film, contrast is limited (though the movie is watchable) and detail is definitely compromised. It's recorded in VHS EP mode.

Corman made some great films, this title is arguably the best of its genre, and I hate to think that the original may be lost or missing, and this is all we have left.

It may have been shot in two days, but it was excellent B/W not so long ago.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Movie musical magic!
Review: In 1982, Broadway released a play called "Little Shop of Horrors," that had audiences applauding for more. In 1984, Roger Corman legend decided to take the worst idea ever of making "Little Shop of Horrors" into a movie in less than two days! Becoming the best known movie as the worse film in recent history. A couple years later, in 1986, "Little Shop of Horrors" become a movie musical phenomenon. Turning this worse idea into one of the greatest things that could possibly happen in cinema history. A movie musical that could surely having you getting up on your feet and dancing to the music. (I know that is what I did when I just *had* to go out and by the soundtrack from the motion picture!) The new impoved camera angles and music makes you really feel something for the characters and makes you want to watch it over and over again. I haven't been able to stop watching since I first ordered from Amazon.com! I know I've watched it more than ten times at least, I can't really remember now, I lost count after the fourth time viewing the DVD, and have gotten most of the songs memorized. My personal favorite song is the new one that was included in the film that wasn't in the original Broadway show called, "Mean Green Mother From Outerspace." It just has a really feel good hard rock beat to it. Loved it, loved it, loved it! Also, other stand out songs that I should mention is: "Little Shop of Horrors," "Skid Row (Downtown)," "Dentist!," "Suddenly Seymour," and "Suppertime." Wonderfully sung songs that would have getting up off your feet and singing along with the music. So, having this worst idea in cinema history, is now the greatest thing t o happen in cinema history. The most remarkable scene that is remembered mostly is the Steve Martin character, the dentist. He does a hilarious appearence as the demented dentist, really putting feeling into his character so that when his death scene comes up, you don't really need to feel sorry for the character. Which I was glad that the bastard died in the first place, because he was just getting on my nervers. Yet, Steve delievers that perfectly to the audience. Also, the backup singers did a tremdous job in the film, I might would like to point out. Without them, we would just have a story about a singing plant, a daring hero, a sweet girl, and a demented dentist. But these gals really can sing and light up the picture, even in a dark moment in the picture. So, regardless if this a musical, "Little Shop of Horrors" is a great film everyone should see over and over again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Cult-Classic Makes the Cut
Review: Little Shop of Horrors. Although pieces of the movie omit wonderful little songs ("Call Back in the Morning" "Mushnik and Son" "Finale/Don't Feed the Plants," etc), it does its job at having tongue-in-cheek humor. As a matter of fact, my High School's production of the play finished up last night..I played the role of Crystal. Excellent movie!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Feed Me!
Review: One of Roger Corman's greats. The film was actually made within a period of 24 hours. Although the lack of production that went into the film never shows in this gem of a cult classic. Jack Nicholson early if not first film appearance. He's only on the screen for about 2 minutes playing a dental patient with a fetsih for pain. The film is much better than the musical remake that was done with Rick Morranis.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Colorized Version
Review: Thank you Ted Turner for bastardizing the classics. Everyone thought this process was so cool when it first began, but I don't see how you can deny that it looks horrible! You can see the colors waning and shifting even as the shot is held in one place, nevermind the fact that colors change from shot to shot. Audrey's dress fro example is white, then green, then yellow all in the same scene! Another thing I don't like is that everyone is the exact same hue. Absolutely no skin color variation whatsoever. It also changes the tone quite a bit. I remember this film being dark and forboding, even a little scary. This film definately started the horror trend of "not knowing when to stop" ala "Re-Animator" and "Return of the Living Dead". If these can be credited, then maybe so can "Shallow Grave", "Stag", and "Very Bad Things". The campy quirkiness is brought to the front with this version, and I think it loses something because of it. To anyone who doesn't know, Jack Nicholson is onscreen for about three minutes as the guy who really likes pain in the dentist office.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A cack
Review: THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is Roger Corman's hilarious masterpiece filmed in only two days and remaining one of my all-time favourite films. It's about a young geeky bloke who works in a plant shop but he don't know that one of the plats that he is selling is a man-eater who can't stop saying "feed me!". A young and way more talented Jack Nicholson has a hilarious small part as a wierdo who loves getting his teeth drilled. Not to be missed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A cheap--yet classic cult film!!
Review: There is nothing better than watching an original movie that was later re-made and comparing the two. Almost 9 out of 10 times the original is better, but NOT in this case...This was a great storyline, needed some brushing up but over all a cult classic. Despite the super-cheap filming and corny acting, it was complete (The chase scenes in the last part of the movie were TOTALLY uncalled for and looked as though kids made it.) After this B-movie was gone, the ever-so-lovely off-broadway version of this movie. All I can say is simply this: OUTSTANDING. Then the wonderful 1986 movie staring Rick Moranis...EXELLENT. So now every version is enjoyable and I just could watch it day in and day out. Buy every version today!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the funniest and darkest comedy/musicals of all time!
Review: There's never been a movie like "The Little Shop of Horrors" before, and there probably never will be. The film it resembles the most is undoubtedly "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," but I find it cleverer, funnier, and more enjoyable than that movie, if still as sick in its own twisted little way.

The movie stars Rick Moranis in the role he was born to play: that of a geeky and timid New York City kid named Seymour, who works at a crummy florist shop way downtown along with Audrey (Ellen Greene), a blonde gal who sounds as if she's sucked in too much helium. Seymour is too shy to confess his love for Audrey, and his only way of dropping a hint is when he finds a mysterious plant at another flower shop and names it Audrey II. "I hope you don't mind," he tells her, and then he drops it by the front window of the store in hopes of drawing customers.

It does. The first customer (Christopher Guest) enters with a cheerfully stupid grin and buys $50 worth of roses. "Do you have change for a hundred?" he asks. They don't. "Oh, well, then I guess I'll just have to buy one hundred dollars' worth!"

Business starts to boom, and the plant starts to bloom, turning into a ferocious man-eater that demands a sacrifice of human blood from Seymour to crave its hunger. After a few weeks, Seymour is bone dry, unable to slice any more fingers open and feed his gargantuan plant. "Feed me, Seymour!" the talking plant bellows.

Audrey has a new boyfriend who has been beating her up. He's a dentist, played by Steve Martin, and as he puts it, "I have a natural talent for causing people pain!" He likes to cause people intense pain, walking through his dentist's office and purposely knocking orderlies in the face with door handles and pulling teeth without applying sedatives. "Wait! I'm not numb!" a customer shouts during an introductory song. "Eh, shut up, open wide, here I come!" his dentist yells, starting to drill away.

Steve Martin has played a dentist since, in the undoubtedly lesser but unjustly bashed "Novocaine" (2001). His outing as a pain-driven dentist in "The Little Shop of Horrors" is ten times better, and Martin is truly the highlight of the entire film, from the point when he is introduced riding his motorcycle to the job with a leather jacket (only to strip it off and reveal a white dentist's coat as he enters his office), to the part where Seymour enters his office with a gun in hopes of killing him and feeding him to his plant. Martin doesn't get what's going on, because he's wearing a comedically oversized laughing gas mask he invented that's making him chuckle like a moron. "What are you gonna do? Shoot me? Ha!" The laughing gas kills him before Seymour musters up the emotional strength to.

Seymour drags the dentist's dead body home, chops him up and feeds him to Audrey II, but this is only the start of his worries, because soon the media frenzy centered around the wonderfully odd plant starts to drive him to insanity, as he desperately tries to juggle between keeping a clean conscience and keeping away the media.

Then Audrey II reveals its true intentions - to take over the world with its offspring - and Seymour decides that it's time to stop Audrey II before it gets too far.

"The Little Shop of Horrors" is such a wonderfully offbeat comedy it's almost impossible to dislike. It's one of my favorite comedies, the type of odd little film that doesn't promise to be very much at all but provides a lot.

Frank Oz directed the film (based on Roger Corman's classic), and it was filmed on a visibly low budget, but that's okay, because it's supposed to be that way. It's part of the fun. All the stages are obviously just that, with poorly painted backgrounds of New York City and the skyline. You can literally see the cracks in the wall where the different stages meet with each other. And it's great! It makes the movie, and the movie knows it isn't anything special. At one point, Audrey has a dream sequence of living in a nice little Brady Bunch home, and we see Seymour cutting the lawn with a lawnmower. It's so cheesy and fake that it barely meets the quality standards of a children's television show - but, once again, it helps makes the movie.

The movie has tons of cameos, too, including James Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Guest, Bill Murray, et al. And if the guest stars, dark humor, and delightful direction don't interest you, perhaps the songs will - because many of them are quite good. The highlight is "Suddenly Seymour," in which Seymour and Audrey have a duet, and Audrey's voice suddenly turns from meek to booming, overpowering Seymour's lyrics and pounding the stage.

This is the definition of a cult film. Everything about it just strikes you as a cult film. But whereas "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is a cult film for - in my opinion - sick people, "The Little Shop of Horrors" is a cult film for people who love comedy. It's all in good nature, with cheery little musical numbers every once and a while that are as funny as the songs in "The Blues Brothers," if not more so. But what makes the film particularly different from the rest is its deliciously dark humor - especially for a mainstream comedy like this. From the plant's adamant bloodlust to the shadowy image of Steve Martin slapping Audrey around behind a backlit stage prop, this is one of the funniest, darkest, and yet also cheerfully lightweight comedies ever.


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