Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Little Shop of Horrors Blu-ray Movie Review

Feed me!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 2, 2012

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 has amassed a rather large fan base through the intervening decades, either from those who saw the film theatrically or on television, or who were introduced to it after having fallen in love with the musical adaptation and its eventual film version. And so these many fans, a hearty and heartfelt apology is offered for this next statement: The Little Shop of Horrors is not very good (or perhaps to be more fair and clear, its not as wonderful as many people claim it is). It’s typical low budget Corman fare, this time infused with a Jewish patois and sensibility, along with ultra lo-fi production values, and it also features a wealth of shtick, a lot of which just isn’t all that funny. And so how to explain the film’s enduring popularity? Well, despite its often amateurish approach, it’s a decidedly fun film, one that obviously doesn’t take itself too seriously at any point (even with regard to its ostensible horror element), and it also has an unusual amount of nerdish heart at its core, as embodied in the character of Seymour, a sad sack that any viewer who has ever felt less than one of the “in crowd” will certainly find sympathetic.

Those who only know of Little Shop through its musical version could very likely be disappointed with the original film version. The 1960 film version has a certain cartoonish element (and in fact the credits play out over a hand drawn depiction of Skid Row), but the film lurches and lunges anecdotally through Seymour’s increasingly harried attempts to keep Audrey Jr. fed, which of course leads to one horrible death after another. Seymour’s life is filled with a number of other cartoonish characters, including his boss at the plant shop, Mr. Mushnik (Mel Welles), the neighborhood dentist who delights in hurting his patients, including a masochist named Wilbur Force (Jack Nicholson), and Seymour’s complaining mother (Myrtle Vail). After Seymour discovers that Audrey Jr. feeds on blood, growing to immense proportions, he’s suddenly a star instead of a shlub, but that doesn’t mean his troubles are over, of course. About the only quasi-normal relationship in the film is that between Seymour and his hapless, erstwhile girlfriend Audrey (Jackie Joseph), after whom Seymour has named the voracious plant.

In an indication that Roger Corman wasn’t the only person on the production staff prone to recycling, one of the most delightful anecdotes about The Little Shop of Horrors involves the film’s fairly outré musical score by cellist Fred Katz. Katz had just written the score for Corman’s Bucket of Blood, and when Corman went back to Katz for a score for The Little Shop of Horrors, Katz simply resubmitted the same cues and charged Corman again for the supposed “original music”. The really funny thing is that evidently Katz did this a total of seven times with this very same music. One might wonder why Corman never realized the same music was being used, but that perhaps speaks to the harried production schedule that Corman always seemed to be on.

The performance style here is over the top, to say the least, and a number of the film’s supposed comedic elements fall fairly flat, like the “sword fight” between Seymour and the sadist dentist. The Little Shop of Horrors was obviously shot not so much on a shoestring as on an aglet, and therefore actors sometimes seem to pause as if they can’t quite remember what the next line is (something Mystery Science Theater 3000’s Mike Nelson makes fun of in his commentary), while Corman’s staging is not exactly state of the art. The Audrey effects are actually passable, considering they’re practical. The film comes in at a brisk 71 minutes, which means even if things aren’t working well in any given scene, soon enough something new comes along to take its place. Despite its flaws, it can’t be denied that The Little Shop of Horrors possesses a peculiar charm that has probably helped burnish the film’s reputation perhaps beyond what’s actually on the screen.

The Little Shop of Horrors Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Mike Nelson. MST3K's Nelson is pretty low key here, but manages to skewer the film fairly consistently. Of course, he has a lot to work with.


• Colorized and Black and White Versions. As is typical with Legend releases, they consider their colorized version the "real" release, and the included original black and white version a supplement. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

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

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.