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Little Shop of Horrors



Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Director: Frank Oz
Cast: Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, Steve Martin
Genre: Musical Comedy Horror


What's it about:
An uptight, nervous man (Rick Moranis) is working in a skid row florist shop and dreaming of romance with the pretty girl who also works there (Ellen Greene). Just as the shop is about to go out of business, he buys a bizarre plant that turns out to be a man eater.

A Little Background:
Little Shop of Horrors is based on the popular off Broadway play that in turn was based on the original 1960 B-budget Sci Fi movie of the same name. Ellen Greene is the only member of the original off Broadway cast to appear in the film.

Cast: This 1986 movie has a lot of popular 80s actors. Rick Moranis who started on Canada's SCTV has the lead and is one of the high lights of the film. Steve Martin reprises his insane doctor role from Sergent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band movie. It's too bad he has such little screen time as the sadistic bad boy, leather wearing, motorcycle riding boyfriend of Ellen Greene is riotously funny. He does have one song in the movie which I liked. Veteran SCTV actor John Candy has a small cameo role and is funny, but his time is all too short. SCTV alumni, Martin Short does not appear in the film.

The Music:
This is a musical and there's a lot of musical numbers! 15 counting the end credit track. The sad thing is most of these songs are throw aways, that are hastily written with uninspired melodies. The real musical high light belongs to the Greek Chorus girls, who effectively narrate the movie with song.



For any musical to work it needs to have a story or characters we care about. The story is farcical and the character development null. The big payoff should have been the romance but like the rest of this movie, it doesn't work.