6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Seymour is a young man who works in a flower store. He manages to create a carnivorous plant that feeds on human flesh. Nobody knows about it, so Seymour and the plant become good "friends". The plant needs food to grow up, so it convinces him to start killing people.
Starring: Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Myrtle VailComedy | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Chances are if you manage to last long enough in Hollywood, sooner or later the accolades will start pouring in and even if you were once decried as small potatoes, you’ll suddenly find yourself anointed as legendary. Such seems to be the fate of Roger Corman, a man whose bargain basement productions were laughed at by cognoscenti and whose theatrical exhibitions were usually consigned to drive-ins and second run neighborhood theaters during their initial releases. Nonetheless Corman always seemed to have his finger well to the pulse of his audience, capturing the cultural zeitgeist with unerring ease, if an also bare bones production ethos and lack of flash and finesse. Corman was a one man film factory who had an almost inerrant knack for making movies cheaply and quickly, and then turning handsome profits. One of Corman’s standard operating procedures was to be—well, thrifty, for want of a better word. As he would do repeatedly in his career, Corman reused sets from a previous film before they were scuttled (in this case A Bucket of Blood), and while it can’t be stated that the sets “wrote” the film (as they probably did in The Terror), they provided a physical framework for The Little Shop of Horrors, a film that came and went fairly quickly in its theatrical exhibition (as the bottom half of a double bill) and probably would have been long forgotten had not a couple of interesting things happened. Little Shop started turning up on television fairly regularly in the later sixties, and once Jack Nicholson became better known, his bit part in the film attracted new attention. The real breakthrough was probably the 1982 Off-Broadway musical adaptation of the film, which introduced a whole new generation to the saga of Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze) and his man-eating plant Audrey Jr.
The Little Shop of Horrors is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Legend Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. This is the second open matte presentation Legend is releasing this week (the other is Plan 9 From Outer Space). Unlike Plan 9 From Outer Space, there really aren't any framing issues per se to mention (the theatrical exhibition aspect ratio was 1.66:1, so the difference is fairly minimal as these things go). The elements used for this transfer have some fairly substantial damage and age related wear, including lots of scratches, flecks, and other marks, as well as some missing frames (notably at Jack Nicholson's first entrance in the film). Otherwise, though, things look at least acceptable, with decent sharpness and clarity and some actually fairly good to excellent contrast and black levels. There does appeal to have been some fairly liberal noise reduction applied to this release, so DNR-phobes are forewarned. As with Plan 9, Little Shop has had its fair share of shoddy home video releases, and relatively speaking this is one of the better looking ones. That may be damning with faint praise, but the image here is generally quite good and stable if not mind blowingly awesome. As is Legend's modus operandi, both the original black and white version as well as a colorized version are included. The colorized version is rather conservatively done, as also is Legend's standard operating procedure. It isn't as bothersome as many of these colorized versions tend to be, but purists still will probably want to opt for the original black and white version.
The Little Shop of Horrors features a mono soundtrack delivered via a fine sounding lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. There's nothing very spectacular about this track, but it gets the job done, with the only real damage related to some of the missing frames, as well as a couple of stray pops and the like. Voices come through cleanly and clearly and Katz's "original" score sounds fine, if often strangely anachronistic. There's enough low end for Audrey Jr.'s booming voice (voiced by the film's writer, Charles S. Griffith) to sound nicely menacing, but there's nothing approaching any contemporary levels of LFE. As long as expectations are set accordingly, there shouldn't be any major complaints about this track.
The Little Shop of Horrors is fun, but it's probably best with regard to characters and an unusual premise than it is in its actual execution (no pun intended). The film really hasn't aged all that well, and despite its inherent charm, its low budget seams show more than ever these days. That actually may add to its allure for a certain class of viewers, but for those who were raised on the musical version, this is going to seem like a relic of a bygone age. This Legend release looks pretty good, all things considered, and sounds fine. The supplements are awfully light, but for those who love this film, this release comes Recommended.
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