Re-using the structure of previous horror-comedy A Bucket of Blood, Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors isn't much more than a concept picture. Pleasurable for its ridiculous premise and miraculous execution (shot in three days), Little Shop also features a game cast and wonderfully cheap puppet. Jonathan Haze endears as the hapless nebbish Seymour, and Jackie Joseph's good-hearted-ditz Audrey remains cheerfully oblivious to her co-worker's accidental homicides. Meanwhile, Mel Welles plays plant-store owner Gravis Mushnick as broad stereotype; he's plenty of fun, even if Mushnick never reaches the heights of his Bucket equivalent, talent-free beat poet Maxwell H. Brock.
As in Bucket, the story depends on the hero killing in the name of popular success, but this story's success - the alien plant that begs for blood - is even more preposterous. The different plant props throughout the film are uniform only in their slapdash quality; Corman didn't even bother to synchronize the plant's jaws and voice. Of course, Corman and company planned on this, selling Little Shop as the "funniest picture" of the year. It's a large claim, but it's not without cause. Jack Nicholson's jittery masochist Wilbur Force merits a viewing all by himself.
The feature by Frank Oz is remarkable in how much it retains from the original film. The nervous hero, the high-pitched dame, the sadistic dentist...they're all here, admittedly in their nascent stages. Certainly there's no actor here achieving the iconic hilarity of Steve Martin and Bill Murray in the 1986 film, which remains my preferred version of this story. Indeed, how could any alternative top Levi Stubbs belting out "Mean Green Mother"? Still, Little Shop of Horrors neatly matches with Corman's entire ethos as a director. The film's conception was unlikely. Its production damn near impossible. The fact that Little Shop is not only coherent, but sly and fun? Honestly, it's some kind of miracle.
RATING: B
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