Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.5

Little Shop of Horrors Blu-ray Movie Review

Mean Green Movie

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 9, 2012

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!

Like the stage musical, the film of Little Shop is narrated in song by a honey-voiced girl group trio, Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon (Tichina Arnold, Michelle Weeks and Tisha Campbell-Martin). Mystical beings who comment on the action like a Greek chorus, they walk between the raindrops, always looking fabulous, except when they're disguised as street urchins living on Skid Row, where the story takes place. In a number ("Downtown") joined by the neighborhood's residents, they describe the despair that pervades Skid Row's streets ("where the food is slop!"), while at the same time letting the viewer know that this world is one where people sing their passions. This is a musical.

Mushnik's Skid Row Florist is the rundown "shop" of the title. The proprietor, Mushnik (Vincent Gardenia), is quickly going broke. The cashier, a sweet bubblehead with a helium voice named Audrey (Ellen Green, who created the part off-Broadway), dreams of a peaceful life in suburbia ("Somewhere That's Green"), while dating a "semi-sadist" dentist (Steve Martin) who prefers working on his patients without Novocaine ("Dentist!"). And then there's Seymour Krelborn (Rick Moranis), the stockroom boy and general slave, whom Mushnik found as an orphan, took in like a stray dog and now routinely kicks (figuratively speaking). Aside from his hopeless crush on Audrey, Seymour is unremarkable.

Then, one day after an unscheduled total eclipse, Seymour finds a strange and unusual plant ("Da-doo"), which he brings back to the shop and christens "Audrey II". He quickly discovers that Audrey II thrives on only one nutrient: human blood ("Grow For Me"). With the new plant in the window drawing interest, Mushnik's establishment suddenly thrives. Everything's great ("Some Fun Now"), until the evening when Audrey II speaks to Seymour (in the voice of Levi Stubbs of The Four Tops) and commands him to fetch a lot more blood if he wants all their good fortune to continue ("Feed Me"). Fortunately, as the cagey plant points out, a deserving victim is right nearby in the person of Audrey's abusive boyfriend, Orin Scrivello, D.D.S. Seymour succumbs to the plant's temptations, although he doesn't exactly become a murderer. The song that explains it all, "(Now) It's Just the Gas", was cut from the film, but the circumstances are clearly laid out.

For a brief moment, Seymour and Audrey glimpse their future together ("Suddenly Seymour"), but the devil's bargain has to be paid ("Suppertime"). Too late does Seymour realize that Audrey II's appetite is boundless and its plans far more expansive than just Skid Row ("Mean Green Mother From Outer Space"). And with that we come to the disputed subject of the film's ending, which is the principal new feature of this Director's Cut Blu-ray. Skip down to the technical sections if you are new to Little Shop of Horrors and don't want your viewing experience tainted by too much information.

Ashman wrote, and Oz filmed, a version of Little Shop that remained faithful to the stage musical, in which Audrey II proved victorious, but in a style that was entirely tongue-in-cheek. Yes, the plant swallowed down first Audrey and then Seymour, but watching two actors disappear into a large prop on stage doesn't have the same gut-punch impact as watching a huge and cleverly animated puppet chomp down (in close-up and with sound effects) on a film's romantic leads. And on stage, after Audrey and Seymour disappeared, they came back for a finale and curtain call, whereas Oz's film took off in a whole new direction. It suddenly became a 1950s monster movie, in which dozens of Audrey IIs went on a rampage tearing apart cities all over America (in exceptional model work, which can now be appreciated on this Blu-ray). Just as producer Geffen had warned, the preview audience hated it. Oz and Ashman had to write and film a happy ending, in which Audrey II is defeated, Seymour and Audrey survive and only a hint of darkness remains in the form of a tiny Audrey II peaking out of the garden outside their new suburban paradise.

Was the world not "ready" for Oz's and Ashman's darker ending? I loved the original stage version, but I don't think "darkness" was the film's problem. Musicals have a rhythm; acts, especially closing acts, build to a finale. The very energetic and upbeat song "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" was written for the movie and wasn't part of the stage show. It's a great song, but it's a rousing, toe-tapping, applause-grabbing number—and when it's done, it's time to bring the story to a close. The equivalent song on stage was "Don't Feed the Plants", which sent people out of the theater on a high (after seeing Seymour and Audrey take a bow) but feels like an afterthought in the Director's Cut of the film, because the film itself is starting over again, having left Skid Row and moved elsewhere. The lesson I take from the Director's Cut is not "don't kill your romantic leads" (although that's certainly a big risk). The lesson I take is: "don't risk major turns in the story after a song that acts as a big closing number".

But let's all thank Warner and Frank Oz for finally showing us the original ending. David Geffen was right to object to the black-and-white version released on DVD in 1998. It barely resembled the real thing, which looks terrific.

Little Shop of Horrors Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Little Shop of Horrors Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

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.

• *Frank Oz and Little Shop of Horrors: The Director's Cut (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1; 10:41): Oz and effects artist Richard Conway discuss the development and creation of the visuals for the original ending. Oz goes on to describe the reaction of the preview audience and the decision to reshoot the ending.



• A Story of Little Shop of Horrors (SD; 1.33:1; 23:04): This 1987 promotional documentary traces Little Shop's path from Roger Corman quickie to successful stage musical and adaptation back to film. It features extensive interviews with Corman, Geffen, Oz and Moranis, as well as other cast and crew.



• Commentary with Director Frank Oz (theatrical cut only): Oz's commentary is enthusiastically detailed in its account of the technical challenges of adapting Little Shop to the screen. It's one of the rare commentaries that conveys a sense of the director as problem solver, and one who frequently depends on other people to deliver the solutions he's imagined. Oz is particularly good at describing how he labored to retain the musical's original "edgy, off-Broadway" sensibility for the big screen. An essential ingredient was creating the film's own self-contained world, so that even when the characters stepped outdoors, they inhabited a reality crafted to match their odd behavior. Oz credits Howard Ashman for encouraging him to have the courage not to be subtle and to embrace without apology the fact that characters in Little Shop burst into song.



• Director's Cut Ending with Commentary by Frank Oz: Since the only change that makes this a "director's cut" is the alternate ending, the Blu-ray presents Oz's commentary on the original ending from the 1998 DVD as a separate extra. As far as I can tell, it cannot be selected while the director's cut itself is playing. Much of the commentary content is replicated in the new documentary prepared for this Blu-ray.



• Outtakes and Deleted Scenes (SD; 1.33:1; 8:42): This is actually the gag reel shown at the cast party. On the DVD, it was accompanied by Oz's commentary, which couldn't be switched off, and no one seemed to have told the director in advance that he'd be commenting on a gag reel. It worked out well, though, because some of the jokes need explanation. On the Blu-ray, Oz's commentary is optional; so you try watching these oddities on your own.



• Trailers (SD)
• Teaser Trailer (1.85:1, enhanced; 1:09)
• Theatrical Trailer (2.35:1, enhanced; 2:07)



• Digibook: Containing much more text than the usual digibook edition, Warner's presentation offers a wealth of information on the production and the cast.



• A Personal Message from Frank Oz: In a separate insert inside the digibook, Oz offers further comments on the restored ending.

Little Shop of Horrors Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.