The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) User Reviews

Charming little movie!

[Snake-666 · 7/10 · 7 October 2003]

This charming little B-movie tells the story of Seymour (Jonathon Haze), a good hearted yet rather slow boy, who works at a flower shop owned by Gravis Mushnick (Mel Welles). During his spare time Seymour develops a new type of plant, which he names Audrey Junior after a woman he likes (Jackie Joseph). Unfortunately this particular plant feeds off human blood and when Seymour can no longer feed it on his blood, the plant itself forces him to look elsewhere for food.

This delightful horror-comedy was remarkably shot in just two days and was originally intended as a sequel to director Roger Corman's ‘Bucket of Blood' (1959). However, ‘The Little Shop of Horrors' stands out in its own right as a charming and inventive low-budget horror movie. Throughout the movie we meet a whole variety of weird and wonderful characters including a man who eats plants (played by Dick Miller who would also work with Jackie Joseph in ‘Gremlins' (1984)), a sadistic dentist, a masochistic dental patient (an early performance from Jack Nicholson) and a woman who can't go a day without a family member passing on. Despite (or maybe because) of the overall absurdity of the movie, ‘The Little Shop of Horrors' manages to be strangely captivating yet portray an air of darkness in the right places.

Roger Corman directed this movie very well considering his resources and complimented the fairly tight screenplay written by Charles Griffith. The special effects were not of that high a standard but, considering the budget and shooting time one, can hardly have anything negative to say about that. The appearance of the plant as it grows throughout the movie may not be that great but overall it takes nothing away from the viewers enjoyment. Perhaps a little bit more could have been done to represent the plants movement more realistically but, even so, this is just a minor flaw of an otherwise great film. The performance from the three main stars was delightful. Though the acting was hammed up in places the movie never lost its comical charm and some slightly dramatic performances towards the end helped create an unsuspected eeriness in the dying moments.

Surprisingly ‘The Little Shop of Horrors' was virtually ignored on its initial release but eventually attained a cult status due to continuous TV play. For those of you who doubt its classic status ‘The Little Shop of Horrors' has now spawned a Broadway musical, a high-budget musical remake and even a Saturday morning children's TV programme. Short (around 68mins) but very entertaining, I recommend this to fans of quirky horror comedies and general horror fans alike! The movie features good direction, a well written story, interesting and likeable characters and some excellent one-liners. My rating for ‘The Little Shop of Horrors' 8/10.

Horror comedy with low budget converted a cult movie

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 3 May 2006]

The picture concerns upon a geeky employee (Jonathan Haze) working in a florist shop called Mushnick (Mel Welles) who brings a carnivorous and ferocious plant developing a bloodthirsty hunger and is forced to murder for human eating .

Horror comedy blending black humor , parody , tongue-in-cheek and horror . The comedy is absurd and cheesy but gets its moments here and there . Incredible cheap but effective visual effects . This is a well known terror-comedy , it's a quickie but was shot for two days and is deemed one of Corman's best and funniest movies ever made although with lack budget . The principal actors and technicians will repeat along with Corman in various films ,in fact, the picture belongs to horror-black comedy sub-genre as ¨A bucket of blood¨ and ¨Creature from the haunted sea¨, both of them written by Charles B. Griffith (who is the voice of ¨Audrie the plant¨ and besides plays the thief) . In the film appears the Corman's ordinary actors as Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Haze and a young newcomer Jack Nicholson in a comic interpretation as a sadomasochistic who receives a especial dental intervention . The picture is remade (1986) as an amused musical comedy by Frank Oz with Steve Martin and Rick Moranis . The flick will appeal to classic and cult movies fans.

Plant food!

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 17 March 2006]

I remember seeing this on a weekly television show called Chiller, when I was in high school. It was one of those local celebrity things, with an emcee presiding over whatever horror movies were in the library of that particular station. I realized quickly, what an offbeat flick this was. It was utterly hilarious with its moments of masochism, the man eating plant, Audrey one and two, and all the other things that Seymour must deal with just to keep going. The plant controls him and it is a hilarious plant. The black and white neutral staging of the plant is so much better than the flashiness of the musical (though I do like some of those songs). The smallness of this film is what helps make it work. Everyone is a caricature. Jack Nicholson's proudest moment. No wonder he is such a wack, spending all that time in his formative years with Roger Corman. The acting works because it is a period piece. No matter how much we try to reproduce the fifties, it always falls short of just seeing the fifties. It's like Dragnet without the strange suits and the slang of the time. It's just more honest because they weren't trying to reproduce it. I haven't watched this in some time, so I think I'll leave my computer and sit down and watch it again.

A surprisingly funny piece of b-movie entertainment from Corman

[bob the moo · 25 July 2005]

Mushnick's is a small florists in skid row – a dead end part of town that everyone knows about but nobody wants to know about. Business is not great, in fact it is awful – nobody wants to buy flowers when they can't be sure where their next meal is coming from. However the cleaning boy has nurtured a strange new plant up from seed and it seems to be getting interest. When he discovers it needs a few drops of blood to make it grow Seymour is the toast of the town with his employer very grateful for the increased revenue the visitors bring. However as it grows it begins to need more than a few drops and soon he is heading down a terrible, dark road.

Like many viewers I suspect, I came to this film after seeing the musical remake; as such I assumed that this would be a straight film in the b-movie genre that Corman is famous for. However I was taken by how amusing this film was because really this is as much a horror comedy as the musical is. From Seymour's alcoholic mother to the cop so hard that even the death of his son is met with a shrug, the whole film is full of darkly comic touches that drew some nice laughs from me. This comic approach helps the film because really it is a silly plot and the fact that the script was tongue-in-cheek meant it was easier to swallow, if you pardon the choice of words. As a horror it doesn't really work but it does have a slocky property that Corman films tend to have – not high quality but low budget, b-movie fun.

The cast match the material and all buy into the joke, watching them also shows that the cast in the musical are really pretty much just impersonate the actors here. Haze is enjoyably geeky and convinces throughout. Welles is funny and plays up to his ethnic caricature well. Corman regular Miller hasn't really got much to do but his face is always a ruggedly familiar and welcome sight. Joseph is not great but her performance suits the b-movie genre – likewise Campo and Warford (who are very funny as Dragnet style cops). Nicholson is pretty funny and was a curious find in a small cameo.

Overall this is not a great film but it is a great b-movie horror. Never taking itself seriously means that it can be darkly funny and take the audience along for the ride. To me it is just as funny as the musical even it is a different type of humour and it is worth checking out.

Charming little movie to watch over and over again

[Coventry · 7/10 · 3 December 2003]

If there is ONE movie that made Roger Corman THE king of low-budget quickies, it's The Little Shop of Horrors!! Practically no budget and shot in two days this movie still looks very decent now, almost 45 years later. That's quite an effort if you ask me and it's good to see that this movie finally received the status of immortal cult movie.

This is a very charming little movie, to say the least. The story is simple but it keeps you alert all the time ( originally, it was meant to be a sequel to Bucket of Blood ) but it's the characters that steal the show. Every character that walks through the screen is exceptional and hilarious. We've got a guy who feeds on flowers, an old lady who loses a family member every day, a mother with a fetish for diseases, a masochistic undertaker who visits the dentist and almost has an orgasm ( legendary appearance by Jack Nicholson in one of his first roles ) and a whole bunch of others...Too much to list, actually. Jonathan Haze is brilliant as the dumb florist assistant in love. He created a new type of plant and that causes a whole lot of trouble...and comedy.

Watch Little Shop of Horrors for it's value in cult cinema, maybe. Or because Roger Corman is an interesting director who deserves to be checked out. Or you could watch it to see where Jack Nicholson started his impressive career a long time ago. But - most of all - watch it because it's an adorable little movie with very funny sequences and a lot of low-budget charm. The 80's musical version by Frank Oz is also worth a look but it doesn't come close to this original version.

Great film!

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 24 August 2003]

Roger Corman's "The Little Shop of Horrors" is a perfect example of a fun,low budget cult film.It's very inventive black comedy that will keep you entertained.The film was shot on a budget of $27000 in a period of just two days.The direction is amazing,the acting is excellent(Jack Nicholson really steals the show as the world's most masochistic patient Wilbur Force)and there are some wonderful moments.All in all if you like Roger Corman's cheapies give this one a look.A must-see!

Cheap, Bizarre, and Funny.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 16 July 2010]

This is one of the few Roger Corman productions that I've enjoyed. And it's mainly because of the ghoulishly amusing story, a couple of outrageous performances, and the wit built into Charles B. Griffith's script.

Gravis Mushnik operates a flower shop on "skid row" in Los Angeles. He can afford two employees, the innocent Audrey and the clumsy, mother-dominated Seymour. The boy is so inept he sends flowers to a funeral with a "Get Well" card, and others to a hospital patient with "Rest in Peace." To keep from being fired, Seymour brings in a strange plant, a mutated Venus fly trap. The plant is small at first, a bulb the size of an avocado, but when it's fed flesh, it grows as large as a refrigerator. It's up to Seymour to keep finding it fresh meat and he does -- a railroad detective, then a sadistic dentist, and finally a beautiful whore. Two accidents, one self defense. Seymour decides that the plant will make him famous and rich enough to marry Audrey. In the end, Seymour is consumed by his own ambition.

I would guess that the budget was something less than that available to a marching band in St. George, Utah. The opening, noir-like narration by a detective, accompanies a picture of Skid Row, and it really IS a sketch, in a crowded style something like Robert Crumb's. Some of the performances are so poor that the actors might have been dragged in from the street and paid off with a box lunch.

But, oh, the presentation! Gravis Mushnik, the store's owner, is a big man with dark eyes, like Charlie Chaplin's frequent villain. His speech is full of Yiddish locutions -- flowery, ironic, unabashed and unashamed. "It's a finger of speech." "Come, talk on me." And the signs on the wall of his shop. "Lots plants cheap!" And, "We don't letting you spend so much." He's a marvelous character, the waving of his arms, the agonized ululations, and the rolling of his eyes heavenward with disbelief.

The sometimes sharp wit extends to lesser characters, like Dick Miller, the customer who buys bouquets only to eat them. "Be back tomorrow. I love kosher flowers." When Seymour's mother tells him, "They're presenting my son with a trophy," Miller comes back with, "Oh, yeah? What'd he do, run away from home?" I won't go on about the scene in the dentist's office except to mention Jack Nicholson as the whining pain freak with the high-pitched voice. Oh, and the insane dentist who drills Nicholson's teeth full of holes and mixes the filler, saying, "I can't afford silver. This stuff doesn't last long but it tastes good," and then takes a spoonful of it.

The musical score is by Fred Katz, a popular cellist and jazz musician of the period. I doubt he was responsible for what we hear on Seymour's Mom's radio: "Music for old invalids. And now -- Sickroom Serenade." The movie has no mercy.

How to shot a movie in two days!

[Bruce_Cook · 3/10 · 21 December 2003]

What a movie! It's got (A) an infamous reputation, (B) a cult following, and (C) the pride of knowing it inspired both an off-Broadway musical comedy and a big-budget movie musical.

All this from a Roger Corman movie that was shot in only two days! It's all about a nerdy flower store clerk who boosts business in a skid row store by displaying a talking, meat-eating plant he calls Audrey, Jr. (named after the girl he loves). The owner of the shop is played by Mel Welles, who went on to direct "Lady Frankenstein" in Italy. The screenplay was written by Charles Griffith, who also plays a hold-up man and provides the voice of the carnivorous plant ("Feed me! I'm hungry!") He later had to sue to receive credit when the stage play became a hit.

Young Jack Nicholson is a masochist who visits his dentist for fun. Dick Miller is a customer who buys flowers and eats them. Jonathan Haze stars as the clerk who serves the hungry plant until it's big enough to eat the store (although the box of the prerecorded tape shows the now-famous Nicholson holding the plant).

Despite the film's seventy-minute running time, it's crowded with black-comedy gags; they overlap each like roofing shingles. The first one is a quick spoof of "Dragnet's" typical kick-off narration, after which things get increasingly frantic until the plot finally swallows its own tail and vanishes altogether. Critics initially scoffed at Corman's "two-day movie", but now they refer to it as "one of Corman's best efforts". A computer-colorized version is available if you'd like to see what a carnivorous gilded lily looks like.

Still Unique Even After 45 Years

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 31 October 2005]

Here's a movie that's gone from cult classic to just plain classic. For me, it's one of the few "cult classics" I saw when it was released and then first shown on television. I loved it then, and I love it now.

Forget the musical re-make made in the 1980s. It couldn't hold a candle to the original.

"Original" is what this is, too. and nowadays, it's great to have it on DVD in which the audio is clear and the picture pretty sharp.

I have always particularly enjoyed the many humorous lines delivered by Mel Welles, who plays the flower shop owner. He is the real comedian of the cast, although the plant does quite well as do the two leads played by Jonathan Haze and Jackie Joseph. The latter two are a little more subtle in their comedy.

All the characters in here are totally whacked, from Haze's hypochondriac mother to Dick Miller's flower-eating character to the Jewish mother who always has a dead relative to moan about and to the dentist and his patient. The latter, of course, is Jack Nicholson, making his movie debut and looking about 16 years old.

In the end, though, what one remembers most is the plant demanding, over and over, to "Feeeeeed me!!"

For that, the plant and the film never fail to make me laugh.

Uniquely weird and original

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 9 April 2014]

Gravis Mushnick is a cheapskate flower shop owner in a poor neighborhood. Seymour Krelboyne is a clumsy worker. Mushnick wants to fire him but he claims to have a new kind of flower that could be a good money maker. Seymour's mother is a bed ridden drunk. He names the plant Audrey junior after his beautiful co-worker Audrey Fulquard. Then late one night, he discovers that Audrey junior loves blood. The plant becomes healthier overnight.

This is one of the great contributions of schlock filmmaker Roger Corman. This is a completely weirdly original story. It is insanely quirky and odd. I wouldn't say it's laugh out loud funny. However it's quite watchable even though the quality of production is very low. For such a great original, I am willing to add one to my rating. Also watch out for a young Jack Nicholson as masochistic patient Wilbur Force.

Sometimes success is ugly!

[michaelRokeefe · 2/10 · 23 March 2003]

Roger Corman directs a script by Charles B. Griffith; filming two days and one night coming up with a black comedy masterpiece. A low budget success that quickly became a cult classic. A hapless nerd(Jonathan Haze)in order to keep his job at the Mushnick Flower Shop creates a hybrid plant that needs human blood to flourish. Seymour(Haze)names the plant after his girlfriend Audrey(Jackie Joseph). Why is it fun to laugh at serious situations? Also in the cast are Dick Miller, Wally Campo and a young Jack Nicholson with a hilarious bit part. Haze is convincing as the bumbling idiot. Joseph is so irritating it hurts. Merri Welles is fetching as the looker hooker. The special effects are bad enough to make this a hoot to watch and believe it or not is superior to the remake in 1986.

I lurve this movie!

[Ben_Cheshire · 8/10 · 3 April 2004]

Funny, sexy black comedy shot by "King of the B's" Roger Corman on a landmark budget of 27 000 and in landmark time of only 2 days! Its the funniest movie i've seen from 1960 or before, and between this fact, the fact that it is black comedy, and the fact that it has the charm and lack of pretension of a cheaply made horror movie, its no wonder it has such a huge cult following.

It has the incredibly sexy Jackie Joseph, one of the most buxom lasses i've ever seen, and many risque scenes, which, along with the jazzy soundtrack and black humour, give this a much freer feel than any studio picture of the era, or any picture before. Its humour hasn't aged a bit - and feels quite modern compared to most humour of the day.

As an added curio, this features Jack Nicholson in his first ever appearance in a feature film (he was in one short film before it), as the nerdy, masochistic patient who squeals with delight when the dentist is drilling holes in his mouth and pulling teeth. Though its only a five minute part, its a great part.

The movie is filled with an edgy humour that the remakes (including the broadway musical, which the 1986 film was based on) are too conservative for. I thoroughly recommend it to you.

Corman went on to become one of the most important producers of the century, since he provided opportunities to many young filmmakers in the 70's, whose projects the major studios would never have invested in, and so we would have been deprived of the talents of Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), Martin Scorcese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull), Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) and many others. Corman taught them how to just go out and make a good movie, and make it cheaply - and his major qualification to be able to teach them this, in my opinion, is that he made Little Shop of Horrors.

One of Corman's first is still one of his best

[Quinoa1984 · 7/10 · 12 July 2006]

The first version of The Little Shop of Horrors, long before the Broadway musical and Frank Oz's musical/horror/comedy, is one of the primary examples of shoe-string movie-making. Shoe-string, of course, refers mostly to the budget, and this possibly ranks above others like Clerks, Slacker, Night of the Living Dead and Blair Witch in order to put it together so quickly. And yet for all of its little slip-ups and deranged moments of comedy, it does work for what its worth. Not that it doesn't show that the film was made in two days, but on those terms of extremely low-budget, go-for-broke B-movie-making, Roger Corman as a director has quite a nifty effort here. The story is similar to a fairy-tale (a darkly comic one to be sure, like one of the Fractures Fairy tales from the old Rocky & Bullwinkle show), in how Seymour (Jonathan Haze, perfect as an awkward, easily shockable little guy) tries to nurture a plant to earn the affections of Audrey (Jackie Joseph). But then the plant turns into a meat-eater, to put it that way, and from there Charles Griffith's script goes into wild comic turns where he now has to figure out how to take care of the plant before it 'takes care' of him. Some scenes are less notable than others, and sometimes the cheesiness of it all (just look at the plant itself for proof enough) can be wearisome. But Corman keeps the atmosphere with a giddy amount of late 50s 'shlock', and some scenes stand the test of time as the best of their B-movie status. Tops go to the 2nd film appearance from Nicholson as the most psychotic of the bunch, as a 'chipper' fetishist who gets off on getting his wretched teeth worked on- it's a masterpiece of a scene with cartoonish action, innuendo and crazy looks from a 23 year old Nicholson. Worth checking out, maybe more than once, and you're likely to find it (appropriately) in the cheapest lot of DVDs and videos at your local store.

Unusually the remake is better

[fionaburn · 3/10 · 29 August 2018]

I love old black & white b-movies. But in this case. It is one of those rarities where the remake is superior. Have to give it credit for the original idea. But go for the 80s remake.

A $50 Corman classic!!

[Infofreak · 10 June 2002]

'The Little Shop Of Horrors' is one of the movies that Roger Corman's reputation as the "king of the quickies" is founded on. Filmed in two days on a budget less than Spielberg's dinner money, this is one of the all-time b-grade camp classics. While the humour is extremely dated the concept is very black and contemporary. Charles B. Griffith probably deserves as much credit for this movie as Corman. Writing this, 'A Bucket Of Blood', 'The Wild Angels' and 'Death Race 2000' has ensured him movie immortality! Corman semi-regular Jonathan Haze may not be as fondly remembered as Dick Miller, but he is well cast as the klutzy Seymour Krelboyne, "father" of the blood thirsty exotic plant Audrey, and Mel Welles hams it up as his tyrannical boss Mushnick. But the show is stolen by Miller as a flower eating hipster, and an astonishingly fresh faced Jack Nicholson as a masochistic dental patient (a classic bit!), as much as Audrey herself. Forget the crappy 80s musical version, stick with this, the real deal. It is pretty creaky in places but still a lot of fun!

Cheesy and Cult Low-Budget Black Comedy

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 3 October 2016]

When the clumsy Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze) spoils two flowers of a client, the owner of a small florist shop Gravis Mushnick (Mel Welles) is ready to fire him. However Seymour tells that he has mixed two plants of different breeds at home and created a hybrid named Audrey Jr. and Mushnick decides to give another chance to his employee. On the next day, Seymour brings Audrey Jr. that becomes the pride and joy of Mushnick, his other employee Audrey Fulquard (Jackie Joseph) and clients. Out of the blue, the flower seems to be dying and Seymour accidentally learns that she likes blood. One day, Seymour is upset since he does not know how to feed the flower and he walks along a railroad. When he throws a stone near a railroad track, he accidentally hits the head of a man that falls on the track and is a train runs over him. Seymour brings the pieces of the man to the shop and finds that the plant likes flesh. On the next morning, Audrey Jr. has grown and become the attraction of the shop. But how will Seymour feed his plant again?

"The Little Shop of Horrors" is a cheesy and cult low-budget black comedy directed by Roger Corman. The plot is silly and this film is the debut of Jack Nicholson with a small role. The characters are weird; there are just a few locations; but this film is still funny fifty six years later. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Pequena Loja dos Horrores" ("The Little Shop of Horrors")

Low budget cult classic filmed in only 3 days!

[mdm-11 · 7/10 · 24 May 2005]

This comedy built around a flesh-eating plant has very little storyline, but it sure is packed with laughs! You'll mockingly imitate the human-gulping "Audrie" as she squeals "...feed me, feed me!" A very young (then unknown) Jack Nicholson is marvelous as the wacko dental patient ready for a filling. There are many crazy surprises, but face it, this is and always will be a cult classic, NOT Academy Award material.

One warning: If you have high standards regarding "perfect DVD quality", you should look for a better transfer copy. The VHS version (around since the early 1980s) offers far superior quality, although it also is less than excellent. The best way to view this piece of Hollywood Nostalgia would be to catch it at a college campus -- It'll make you feel like a kid again!

Campy classic

[johno-21 · 6/10 · 12 March 2006]

I first saw this movie on TV when I was a kid and it probably never even made the Drive-In circuit but went straight to local television station libraries. Even as a kid I never saw any horror in this but viewed it as a tongue-in-cheek horror/comedy. This is directed by the king of Drive-In horror genre movies Roger Corman who also went into straight to video film making as a producer. This movie likely would have had it's limited late night TV run in the 60's and into the early 70's and then disappeared if not for the fact that a young Jack Nicholson had a fun and memorable role in this. Lead actor Jonathan Haze didn't have a notable career after this but Jackie Joseph would go on to a lot of film, television roles and TV cartoon voice-overs. Other cast members Dick Miller and Mel Welles would go on to appear in many television and movie roles and Miller is still very active today. Writer Charles B Griffith and Roger Corman wrote this in a single night, gave their actors three days to rehearse and shot it in two days. Griffith supplies the voice of the man-eating plant. This is a black comedy, low budget campy classic and I've seen it many times. Great character names and a funny script. This is bad by design which makes it pretty good. I would give this a 6.5 out of 10.

If you enjoy stupid, this is for you

[Better_Sith_Than_Sorry · 3/10 · 1 December 2019]

Plot in a nutshell: A clumsy loser working at a flower shop experiments with cross-pollination and creates a man-eating plant with a voracious appetite.

Why I rated it a '3': First, the good. The story is somewhat original and deserves a little credit. OK that's about it for the good.

The bad: the film operates at SUCH a silly level that you really have to enjoy 'stupid' to enjoy this film. Some examples...a customer of the florist's has a taste for flowers. That's right, he eats them. He is shown early on munching down on some carnations and he mentions that his wife 'is making gardenias for dinner.' Now, that's hilarious, right? "Dude look he's eating flowers!! OMG that's funny!!" You might have that reaction. Or, you might roll your eyes and think "Boy that's pretty dumb."

There is a detective in the film named Joe Fink and in a bit of voice-over narration, he introduces himself and ends with saying "I'm a Fink." If you didn't know, that's supposed to be funny, too. Note I wrote 'supposed to be,' because the truth is, it's not. It's pretty painful and the 'hits' like this just keep on coming for 80 minutes. I probably laughed two, maybe three times over the entire film. A recent reviewer here wrote "Some people might find it void of laughs" and boy was that on the money, but inexplicably that reviewer still gave the film a 7. Here's a newsflash: a comedy is supposed to be funny. If it's not funny, it's not a 7.

Jack Nicholson has a small role as a masochistic dental patient and I suppose it's noteworthy for the simple fact that Jack went on to much bigger and better things. But the part he plays here is just as cringe-worthy as the rest of the film. "Dude he likes pain! He wants to get his teeth pulled without novocain! What a wacky guy!!" Wow another amazingly 'funny' moment. Or not. Yes, cue the eye-rolling yet again.

3/10. This is not good. A painfully unfunny 'comedy' that I will never watch again. Those rating this a '10' (and there are several) are just embarrassing themselves.

A Hilarious Cult Comedy Classic!

[reiss-ferlance · 9/10 · 5 July 2006]

The Little Shop Of Horrors is a brilliant movie, one of the funniest comedies I have ever seen. I bought this movie from HMV (Top dog for DVD's) It was in "The Classic Horror Boxset" Volume 1. It included other movie classics like House On Haunted Hill, Horror Hotel, The Ghoul, and some more. This movie shouldn't even be called a horror movie, I don't know anyone who was scared by this movie, if they were, then don't watch a movie like "The Wasp Woman." The story of this movie is hilarious, and so are the characters. This movie is about a young man named Seymour Krelboyne, who nurtures a plant then discovers it's a talking, man- eating plant, The plant is funny, the lines that the plant says like: "Feed Me Seymour","You look fat enough". The character of Seymour Krelboyne is funny, he tends to say "I didn't mean it" This movie is just generally funny. This movie was supposedly shot in 2 days. How did they make it in 2 days? The acting is this movie is good. The actors really make the movie funny. Mel Welles plays a funny Gravis Mushnik, and Dick Miller makes a great Burson Fouch and the character of the old woman, every day she loses a family member. The funniest scene in the movie (SPOILERS CONTAINED!) is the scene in the dentist. Where Seymour Krelboyne is pulling out a man teeth. The man is played by Jack Nicholson. This was supposedly his first movie. Overall. This movie is brilliant. There was a remake in the 1980. I liked that one, but the original is still the best. I give The Little Shop Of Horrors (1960) 5 stars out of 5 stars. *****/*****

Skewed, off-kilter comedy

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 17 August 2016]

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is another one of the Roger Corman quickies made on the cheap. This one was shot in just two days and it shows. It's got a one-trick storyline, takes place for the most part in a single set, and with a small group of actors involved, many of whom were Corman regulars. It could have been a load of old rubbish but it works and the major reason for that is down to the interesting, original storyline. Griffith's idea is about a sort-of Venus flytrap plant that feeds on human blood rather than flies; in essence this is a vampire story, but with a plant rather than a human. There were lots of 'killer plant' type stories being churned out in the pulp age of weird fiction and this is just like one of them. Corman chooses to play things for laughs and the result is a quirky comedy with lots of surreal humour involved.

Many of the laughs come from the bizarre characters in the film. Jonathan Haze is very good as the dim-witted Seymour and Jackie Joseph shines as the beautiful object of his obsession, Audrey. Mel Welles has fun as the larger-than-life flower shop owner and there are great, minor roles for Corman regulars Jack Nicholson (hilarious as a sado-masochist) and Dick Miller (as a guy who loves eating flowers). The special effects of the killer plant are VERY limited but the ending, with the faces of the victims appearing in the blossoms, is imaginative and slightly disturbing. It's not a film that you'll want to watch more than once, and the musical remake vastly outclassed it in terms of budget and technical proficiency, but the skewed, off-kilter comedy and bizarre storyline make it worth a watch.

Nauseating

[view_and_review · 3/10 · 25 December 2018]

This extremely silly slapstick of a comedy about a clumsy fellow named Seymour (Jonathan Haze) and his carnivorous plant named Audrey Jr. is the origin of the '86 version with Rick Moranis. The Rick Moranis Little Shop of Horrors is exponentially better even if it is a musical.

I'm not a slapstick kinda guy. Seeing inept klutzes fall all over themselves and make one boneheaded mistake after another is not my idea of comedy. Seymour was the Three Stooges all by himself without the silly noises. There were small breaks of joy such as seeing Jack Nicholson as Wilbur Force. His role would be replayed by Bill Murray in 1986 but I was just giddy to see a young black-and-white Nicholson before he was famous. Besides that little trinket and tiny pockets of humor the movie was largely nauseating.

Remarkable

[carflo · 8/10 · 24 December 2011]

I saw Little Shop of Horrors once on TV when I was in junior high and my girlfriend saw it also. For weeks we made giggling "Feed me! I'm hungry" jokes and we both thought of it as a really bad-funny horror film. I just saw it again and realized we were wrong. It was not a 'really bad-funny horror film; it was a really really good dark comedy. The fact that Corman made it in just 2 days for $27,000 only adds to my amazement as to how good it is. Every character was an eccentric gem, especially Jack Nicolson's masochistic dental patient, better even than Bill Murray's later portrayal of the same character - and that is saying a lot. I especially liked the two cops, Fink & Stoolie with Fink doing an excellent Joe Friday. If you like black comedy - and I do - please give the 1960 version of Little Shop of Horrors a look-see. If you find it even half as funny as I did, you won't be disappointed.

It's A Cult Classic, Not A Masterpiece

[sddavis63 · 6/10 · 24 May 2014]

No one is going to watch "The Little Shop Of Horrors" and think that it's a masterpiece. It isn't. Really not in any way. The performances are at best OK for the most part, the story is silly, the sets are bare bones, the man-eating plant looks ... well ... not very scary at all. Just silly. But of course, you're making a mistake if you watch this expecting to find a masterpiece. It hasn't become known as a cult classic for no reason. It has pretty much everything you'd want to find in a cult classic.

In its silliness, it's fun pretty much the whole way through. Interspersed among the "OK" performances is actually a pretty good one by Mel Welles as Gravis Mushnick, a flower shop owner whose store is on skid row, so he doesn't make much money. When his employee Seymour (Jonathon Haze) develops a new plant, it's a chance for Gravis to make money by getting people into the store to see the new plant and hoping to get them to buy flowers while they're there. Unfortunately, the new plant is a man-eater, and Seymour ends up having to find its food for it. There's a bit of a spoof of the TV show "Dragnet" going on, revolving around a couple of local cops assigned to find the people who've gone missing (after being fed to the plant.) There's even a very early role for Jack Nicholson as a guy who loves having pain inflicted on him by dentists!

It's not a masterpiece. Not at all. Not in any way. But it has more than enough going for it to deserve the status of cult classic that it's gained. And you'll never hear the words "Feed Me!" again after watching this and not think about this movie! (6/10)

Bless you, Rifftrax.

[cricketbat · 5/10 · 11 October 2018]

This version of Little Shop of Horrors made me long for the musical. It's pretty awful. Yes, it's fun to see Jack Nicholson in one of his first major roles, but that's about all this movie has to offer. The acting is so bad that it's distracting and the dialogue isn't much better. Thank goodness for Rifftrax, which helped it feel a little less miserable. Bless you, Rifftrax. Bless you.