On the twenty-third day of the month of September, on an early day not to far from Halloween,
Fade Dragontear decided to review a cool little horror musical,
but discovered the reason for it's very existence,
looking beneath the surface things began to spiral out of control,
as reviews his often do, in the seemingly most pointless and unlikely
of ways....
-Musical Interlude-
~Little shop, Little shop of horrors~
~Little shop, little shop of terror~
~Call the cops, Little shop of horrors, Oh, Oh, Oh, Noooo~
So this was a review I've been meaning to do for a while, it was supposed to be a quick
and easy review of a really fun 80's rock musical about a giant plant that eats people,
I mean, great music, awesome special effects, it might be something you remember from your
past or maybe it's completely new to you, either way it's a no-brainer for a solid Halloween review
but in typical Fade fashion the more I put any actual thought into any aspect of this
film the more fascinated I became.
So what I'm actually going to do because my special brand of insanity compels me to do
so, is take a look at the original 1960 Roger Corman directed film and compare it to it's
1986 musical remake that I remember from my childhood which was directed by Frank Oz,
well technically it's an adaptation of an offbroadway adaptation of Corman's film, which
itself may have been inspired by an Arthur C. Clarke short story which in turn was inspired
by an H.G. Wells story.
but that's the exact kind of detail that drives me absolutely crazy and is nearly impossible
to write into a review script without rambling on like a jackass.
So you can probably tell the kind of fun review this is gonna be, I'm going to get sidetracked
a lot so just bare with me.
Anyway both films are horror comedies that follow a clumsy yet passionate botanist named
Seymour who works at a small struggling flower shop in a poor urban area called skidrow.
In the 60's he's played by Jonathan Haze, he's depicted as a somewhat neurotic man,
eager to please those around him.
Considering the era and genre, It's a great performance.
Previous to Littleshop he had been in 30 odd films in the short span of 6 years.
The 80's version of Seymour is played by the Canadian comedy legend Rick Moranis who I
feel nails the feel of haze's original character, but adds his own unique charm to the role.
Annnd just to be clear skid row is a general term that refers to a part of a city that's
known for high rates of homelessness and poor maintenance, in this case it may be referring
to a specific area of New York I'm not really sure and it doesn't really matter.
annyway, Seymour works in a poor part of town, both films present this using different framing
devices, the original using a film noirish style detective voice over with the remake
going with a Greek chorus.
I guess I gotta explain what a Greek chorus is now, okay basically they're side-characters
removed from the action who offer commentary on what's happening in the plot.
So think like, the Oompa Loompas in Willy Wonka or the muses in Disney's Hercules, although,
the Greek chorus doesn't always have to take the term chorus literally like C3PO and R2D2
or Statler and Waldorf.
-Video feed has been hijacked, captions unavailable-
I'm sorry, I can't stop those two. It's my fault for bringing them up.
In this case however the term is taken literally as we're given the setting in the form of
a catchy musical number.
It's a lot quicker and grabs your attention a lot more readily than the 60's original.
You might also recognize two thirds of this ensemble from other future roles.
Tisha Campbell was on Duckman and Ticina Arnold was on the Boondocks so that qualifies them
as top tier celebrities in my mind.
The third member, Michelle Weeks didn't have much of a film career, but that's cool cause
she's an EDM goddess.
-Musical Interlude-
~Don't give up! Don't give up the fight~
~Believe in yourself and what you feel is right~
-Musical Interlude-
I just I figured I'd giver her a second to do her thing. Moving on..
You can also immediately tell there's a bit of a budget difference going on, with the
original being made for roughly 30 grand and the remake at around 30 million.
Also, the original was shot in two days.
Well technically the script took two weeks, they recycled sets from other films, had a
three day rehearsal, and two days to shoot.
There was also some second unit stuff.
What I'm saying is that Roger Corman is a fuckin' machine, he mostly produces nowadays,
actually citation needed but he might hold the world record for most films produced and
he's been making films in some capacity since 1950.
The dude is a film legend and if he happens to find his way to watching this video I have
a couple really solid pitches I'd love to share so feel free to reach out
I know like 90% of this video is me rambling on here but it's only fair that I speak about
the director of the remake Frank Oz who is a legend in his own right.
I mean, yeah, he's Yoda, and Grover, and Cookie Monster and Fozzy, and Animal, and Miss Piggy
but he's also a pretty accomplished producer and director, The Dark Crystal is one of my
favorite fantasy films of all time and who doesn't love the Muppet movies?
I can't find any solid information about the production timeline of the remake, but it's
safe to say that there was more time spent on just about every aspect of the film, and
it really shows, even at a glance you can see the vast difference in staging, and choreography.
That's not even considering elements like lighting, special effects or the soundtrack.
Annnyway, back to the plot in both films Seymour brings a new exotic plant to the shop which
draws the attention of locals passing by therefore bringing prosperity to the shop.
Both films imply the plant has a psychic draw, it's done pretty subtly in both cases, but
it's there.
In the 60's version Seymour just says he bought the seeds from a Japanese farmer, in the remake
we get a musical number about that moment.
The remake implies that the plant is from space.
Also the Japanese guy was changed to a Chinese guy for some reason, iunno,
In the original the first customer is played by Dick Miller who shows up as a guy who eats
flowers, I donno, it's just his thing in this movie.
If you don't know who Dick Miller is, shame on you, he's a character actor who's been
in so much stuff, some of it you've probably even heard of.
In fact; I'm sure many of you are trying to figure out what you've seen him in before.
Let me help you out with that, Just off the top of my head Gremlins, the terminator, various
star trek, and the burbs which I've been meaning to review for a while.
In the remake we get Christopher Guest as this guy.
"Excuse me, I couldn't help noticing that strange and interesting plant, what is it?"
You might know Christopher but not as readily recognize him from the princess bride or spinal tap
They both nail the whole "weird guy in the flower shop" in their own unique way.
Seymour names the plant Audrey junior, after the daughter of the shop owner and his love
interest Audrey, played in 1960 by Jackie Joseph and by Ellen Greene in the 80's.
Actually in the remake it's not clear if Audrey is the shop owners daughter, and the plant
is named Audrey II, but whatever, we're just going to move on.
Both deliver a stellar performance.
It's worth note that Jackie Joseph and Dick Miller played husband and wife together just
two years before the remake on gremlins.
that can't be a coincidence right?
Like, I feel like there was some kind of little shop reunion slash tribute going on.
Annywayyy Seymour quickly learns that the plant needs human blood to sustain itself
In the 60's version Seymour at first accidentally feeds the plant after cutting himself on another
plant and this causes Audrey junior to grow exponentially overnight.
In the remake a similar situation happens during a musical number, but it's pretty clear
that Audrey II is quite a bit more proactive in the pursuit of it's needs, and has a lot
more personality.
I guess I should take a moment to appreciate the special effects here, Audrey ii in the
remake was done with a mix of several techniques including animatronics, traditional puppetry
and a little bit of photographic trickery with a lot of the shots of the plant being
filmed at half speed and then sped up.
Which means in some cases Rick Moranis and the other actors had to play their roles in
slow motion, and honestly had I not read that on the internet I never would have guessed,
so props for that.
Along with later characters like the tremors from tremors and the dinosaurs from Jurassic
park, Audrey II stands out as one of the greatest special effect driven characters of all time.
Partly because of just how expressive the character is which is a combination of the
special effects and the performance of Levi Stubbs, who might might also know as mother
brain from captain N, or one quarter of the four tops.
I'd also like to point out that there is some interesting imagery in Seymour giving his
own blood in order for the plant to flourish and grow as essentially his life depends on it.
I can kinda relate, that's how I feel about my channel sometimes.
For example, I'm pretty sure this video is going to get copyright claimed because of all this music, This song isn't even in the movie, I just like the four tops. I figure I may as well just go for broke right?
Annnyyyywaaaayyyy, not being able to sustain the plant with his own blood alone, and at
the plants demand Seymour finds a fresh form of food.
The original has a pretty fun sequence where Seymour accidentally kills a guy.
He then Also accidentally kills a sadistic dentist who enjoys inflicting pain.
The dentist is an interesting enough character, but the scene is stolen by a young Jack Nicholson
who plays who plays a guy who just loves having pain inflicted upon him.
In the remake the dentist is played by the legendary Steve Martin, who has a whole musical
number about the wonders of being a sadistic bastard.
Funny enough, this seems to be one of the most memorable sections of the whole film.
When I brought this movie up to friends while writing this review, the one thing people
seem to consistently remember is Steve Martin in this role.
The fact that this short section of the film kind of overshadows the whole giant man eating
slash singing plant is a testament to the mans screen presence.
So much so that I often forget that Bill Murray takes on the same role as Jack Nicholson did
in the original.
The remake cuts a section where Seymour takes the human Audrey on a date to meet his mother,
while the scene is amusing, it doesn't really serve any practical purpose aside from somewhat
justifying Seymour's neurosis so I understand why it was cut.
What the remake does instead is the human Audrey's rendition the song "suddenly Seymour"
which apparently a lot of peoples favorite song in this film, not mine, it's not bad
or anything but it just doesn't hold a candle to any of the songs that the plant Audrey performs.
The remake adds, changes or cuts a few other scenes such as Seymour feeding his boss to
the plant, and the plant using a payphone to lure the human Audrey to the shop as bait.
The original ends with the detectives from the intro investigating the mysterious deaths
as the faces of the victims appear in the plants bloom indicating Seymour guilt.
There's a bit of a chase sequence ending back at the shop where Seymour decides to jump
inside the plant with a knife presumably to kill it, which fails miserably as we see his
face among the blooms as he laments his poor choices and the film comes to a close.
The remake has several endings; in the theatrical version Seymour and Audrey defeat the plant
and live happily ever after, which is totally lame so I personally prefer the original ending
where Seymour ends up feeding Audrey to the plant and then in turn is eaten himself as
Audrey II reproduces and takes over the world...I know it sounds like a downer, but there's
a great musical number and some really cool special effect sequences attached that really
elevate this ending to greatness.
While both films are a great watch, they are very quite tonally different.
It's pretty clear that the remake had more time and money go into it's production which
in my opinion results in a better overall film in addition to a soundtrack that I still
sometimes listen to over 30 years later.
Overall the 80's version is one of my favorite musicals, it's a really fun upbeat horror
comedy that stands the test of time, the 60's version I enjoy on a more academic level as
it's a really interesting look into that era of film.
Speaking of film eras, since we are in the era of the reboot the comparison is all the
more interesting, I haven't really seen any modern films take this kind of unique approach
to doing a remake, It changes so much, and yet so little.
It'd be interesting if modern filmmakers took this approach to remakes.
I for one am ready to see something like apt pupil as a madcap Dennis the menace style
hi-jinx comedy,
or it's a mad mad mad mad world as a huge budget fast and the furious type summer blockbuster
action film starring an ensemble cast,
Oh oh, the producers as a super serious Scorsese-eske thriller.
We could have the Toxic Avenger join the other Avengers, I mean he technically exists in
the marvel universe already, but I guess after the whole James Gunn thing Troma and Marvel
may not be able to come to an agreement on that one.
Leave your crazy reboot ideas in the comments below I guess.
If you didn't absolutely hate this video and want to support this channel, I'll put a link
somewhere so you can do that.
Once again this was FadeDragonfear wishing you a safe and fun Halloween, thanks for watching
guys, peace out.