Film Review - Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Based off the off Broadway show, this film version stars Rick Moranis as Seymour, a down on his luck worker in a small flower shop on Skid Row who fancies his co worker Audrey (Ellen Greene) and finds a mysterious plant that he names after her and puts on display in the shop window.

Little Shop is a wonderful musical with some terrific songs by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken that feel fundamental to the films storytelling plus are just great great fun to listen to (Son be a Dentist and Mean Green Mother from Outer Space to name as examples) and in some cases (Somewhere that's Green being one example) foreshadowing some of their later work at Disney and yes, those songs will be on the tip of your tongue long after watching this film.

There is also some great effects work on the Audrey II plant itself no doubt director Frank Oz of the Muppets and Yoda fame had a lot to do with that and at the heart of this musical is a sweet love story between Audrey and Seymour.

However and here is where I begin to talk more about the recently released director's cut of the film which restores the original ending of the Broadway show the third act deviates from that sweet love story and becomes much more of a monster musical with a big effects laden finale and it doesn't quite work, don't get me wrong the effects work is phenomenal as is the touching reprise of Somewhere That's Green and it's great to be able to see it after so many years of mainly hearing about it.

But for me the main reason this ending doesn't work in the film is that old idium of just because it works on stage (and it can there as the cast come out to take a bow 5 minutes later) doesn't mean it's going to work on film and part of me thought when I saw it "You could press play on Pacific Rim right after watching this ending" as boy does it have that feel to it.

So despite my preference for the theatrical version of the film (it's normally the case for 99.9% of all Special Editions, Director's Cuts and Extended Versions of hit films), you shouldn't skip Little Shop of Horrors as it's a terrific musical, 4 and a half out of 5.