7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.6 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The movie version of the hit musical based on the 1960 Roger Corman schlock sci-fi cult classic about a blood-craving plant from outer space that takes up residence in a Skid Row flower shop, under the care of nerdy Seymour Krelborne. For a time, the plant, which Seymour calls "Audrey II" after the girl of his dreams, pretends to be Seymour's friend, but then its true intentions are revealed.
Starring: Levi Stubbs, Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, Steve MartinHorror | 100% |
Comedy | 93% |
Musical | 88% |
Dark humor | 36% |
Romance | 12% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 2.0
German: Dolby Digital 2.0
Italian: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
Japanese: Dolby Digital Mono
Director's Cut is English only; Japanese track hidden depending on player language setting
English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Japanese, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
In the beginning, there was a 1960 cult classic that Roger Corman shot in two days, just to see if he could. It featured an early performance by Jack Nicholson and was otherwise ideal material for Mystery Science Theater 3000. Producer David Geffen thought it was the worst idea for a musical he'd ever heard. But Geffen hadn't reckoned on the late Howard Ashman, whose sweetly sardonic outlook on life made Little Shop of Horrors the perfect vehicle to poke fun at a boatload of conventions, including the American Fifties, B movies, Horatio Alger stories, storybook romance, even musical comedy itself. But Ashman was no cynic, as he would later prove in his work for Disney. At the heart of Little Shop, he saw a moving romance between its nebbish hero, Seymour, and its lovably dim heroine, Audrey. In every version of Little Shop, no matter what the ending, their love affair never fails to touch the heart of the audience. Ashman's partner-in-crime was Alan Menken, a talented pianist and composer, who got his start accompanying singers in New York City clubs and writing jingles and songs for cabaret performers. In the early days, Menken wrote his own lyrics, and he still sometimes performs songs from those years. But Menken's true gifts were musical, and his work for numerous performers had developed a skill for melodic pastiche that would serve him well in creating Little Shop's score. In Ashman, Menken recognized both a superior lyricist and a gifted bookwriter, the latter being an essential but underappreciated contributor to a musical who tells the story and establishes the structure into which the songs fit. Little Shop of Horrors, the second collaboration between Ashman and Menken, opened off-Broadway on July 27, 1982, at the Orpheum Theatre on lower Second Avenue, which was seedy territory then—Rent country. Nobody cared about the location. Everyone came to see it. (I even took my mother.) Critics raved, the show won almost every award that can be given to an off-Broadway musical, and the Orpheum had a tenant for the next five years. The movie followed. Leaving aside the tricky issue of the ending that was changed after test screenings (which this Director's Cut Blu-ray allows viewers to evaluate for themselves), director Frank Oz's screen adaptation of Little Shop is one of the most faithful stage-to-screen translations I know. It certainly helped that Ashman wrote the screenplay, but it was also essential that Oz "got" what had made the show work at the Orpheum Theatre, an intimate 350-seat venue where nothing felt too much larger than life. The importance of proper scale became apparent when the show made its Broadway debut in the fall of 2003 in a theater almost four times the size of the Orpheum. Seymour's and Audrey's love story was dwarfed by the giant sets, while the massive plant known as "Audrey II" dominated the stage and, in the finale, extended out over the audience in a move that reversed The Phantom of the Opera's famous chandelier crash.
These plants want the director's cut!
Cinematographer Robert Paynter, a frequent John Landis collaborator, shot Little Shop of Horrors, having previously worked with Frank Oz on The Muppets Take Manhattan. Paynter had the interesting job of lighting the dull grime of the enormous Skid Row sets, which contrasted with the glitz of the frequently changing outfits worn by the girl group trio, as well as Audrey II's increasingly garish otherworldly colors and, for extra fun, the pastel vistas of the human Audrey's suburban fantasies. All of these are brought thrillingly to life on Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which looks so solidly detailed that it could be a new movie—in the sense of a new 1986 movie shot with film, with effects done in camera, processed photochemically and projected from a clean analog source with grain intact. (Even if one's idea of "new" is digital photography finished on a DI, with effects created in a computer and projected via DPL, then Little Shop still looks pretty good.) Colors are vivid where appropriate and dull where they should be. Blacks are deep when necessary (e.g., in Audrey's outfits when she's dating Dr. Scrivello), and detail is good enough to make the inside of Audrey II's mouth look as off-putting as it should be. There were no compression or other artifacts, and no one has taken a grain filter to the image or done any artificial sharpening.
Little Shop of Horrors received a 70mm release with a 6-track mix, and one can hear the benefits on the Blu-ray's DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. Bass response, which is the great strength of 70mm sound, is tight and focused, and the instrumental arrangements by Bob Gaudio of the Four Seasons can be heard with a crispness and clarity that most viewers probably didn't enjoy during the theatrical release. Surround effects are limited to obvious moments like the rainfall that occurs during the title song and the thunder that disturbs the scene when Mushnik witnesses something he shouldn't, but the surrounds also provide support for the instrumentals so that they fill the listening space. Vocals and dialogue are exceptionally clear, and one welcome feature is that there's no obvious fall-off in quality when the original ending kicks in for the director's cut.
Most of the extras were created for the DVD first issued in 1998, which included the film's original ending as a deleted scene in a black-and-white version. That DVD was withdrawn at the insistence of producer David Geffen, although copies remained on the market, and the DVD was later reissued without any version of the film's original ending. The Blu-ray omits two TV spots included on the DVD. The sole feature new to the Blu-ray release is marked with an asterisk. Of course, the original ending fully restored is a huge new feature in and of itself. It just doesn't happen to be among those listed here.
Regardless of which ending one prefers, certain elements of Oz's film have become the version of Little Shop of Horrors, even for diehard theater fans like me, who enjoy seeing such protean works reimagined and explored anew. It will be a long time, if ever, before anyone manages to top Steve Martin's portrayal of the sadistic Orin Scrivello, or even drown out Martin's rendition of the song "Dentist". Ellen Greene's Audrey will be always be the definitive version, especially for anyone who saw her do it live (the lady didn't need the help of studio technicians to belt out those big notes). And Bill Murray's memorable dental patient, who wasn't even in the stage version but was added back from the Roger Corman movie, gives Oz's film the unique electric charge that has filmmakers still chasing after the notoriously reclusive Murray to appear in their films even today. Murray's loopy Arthur Denton is just another reminder that on Skid Row you never know what you're messin' with. Highly recommended.
Director's Cut + Theatrical
1986
Director's Cut + Theatrical | Limited Edition
1986
1986
1986
45th Anniversary Edition
1975
Wadzilla / I Was a Teenage Werebear / The Diary of Anne Frankenstein / Zom-B-Movie
2011
2013
1996
1986
1990
Director's Cut
1986
1986
2006
1990
1984
Slipcover in Original Pressing
1984
1988
2013
1986
1967
2009
2004
1964
40th Anniversary Edition
1974