Seymour and Audrey work at Mushnik’s Flower Shop in New York’s Skid Row. Business is bad until Seymour suggests putting his unique plant in the window. He got the Venus fly-trap-looking plant one day after an unexpected solar eclipse and couldn’t tell what it was; he named it Audrey II (due to his crush on Audrey…I). Audrey II immediately garners attention and improves business, but the plant starts to wilt and doesn’t respond to traditional horticultural techniques. That is until Seymour pricks his fingers and learns that Audrey II feeds on—human blood. Seymour’s finger drops do well for Audrey II, who continues to grow, but who continues to need larger and larger blood sacrifices. Seymour and Audrey (I) fall in love and their world improves in every way, but the weight of Audrey II’s secret and increasing blood-thirst threatens to prune their happy ending.
“Little Shop of Horrors” was a fun, especially weird romp through the unique horticultural-horror-musical genre. The film had this Burton-esque style and tongue-and-cheek tone that I immediately connected with and enjoyed. The music was fun or fine. There was this weird duality where sometimes, the soundstage-production felt visually flat. And then other times, characters were staged in a special way or Frank Oz moved the camera in some really unexpected manner that added a lot of cinematic depth to the flick. I loved the supporting comedy characters, like Steve Martin’s Orin Scrivello and Bill Murray’s Arthur Denton—their scene together generated an actual “LOL” from me. And Audrey II’s puppeteering looked amazing. While I immediately bought into both characters and the charming, small story about kicking the can down the road and pondering "when have I crossed the line?", the film’s third act doesn’t do much for me. I read that it was extensively retooled, due to audiences hating the original ending. Where they landed was just ok.
Oh, and the “Greek chorus” was the absolute best—Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon carried the film, musically. I will never not love that device.