The Cinematropolis cofounder, Jacob Leighton Burns kicks off our November theme by reflecting on the film experience he’s most thankful for this season, Little Shop of Horrors.
A sea of stars fades into view, a drum roll leads us to the first familiar orchestral hits, and then, “On the twenty-third day of the month of September, in an early year of a decade not too long before our own, the human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence. And this terrifying enemy surfaced, as such enemies often do, in the seemingly most innocent and unlikely of places…” Cue the piano riff and then SPLASH! A tossed bottle reveals that the sea of stars was an illusion, only a puddle in a pothole on the worn down streets of Skid Row. The camera tilts to introduce us to a litter strewn street corner and a darkened Mushnik’s Flower Shop, otherwise known as the Little Shop of Horrors.
My love for this film starts at a very young age. My parents were fans of the stage musical, and anytime we went on a road trip, a cassette of the musical’s catchy tunes provided the soundtrack for our ride. Having not seen the stage show or the film, I pestered my parents with questions about the story as I tried to imagine just how everything was performed. I was in third grade when I ripped away the wrapping paper of a rectangular Christmas gift and first laid my eyes upon my very own VHS copy of Frank Oz’s film version of Little Shop of Horrors. There was cheering and dancing that night as the family gathered around the TV and I was introduced to that magical musical world. A big dumb grin was plastered on my face from beginning to end. And over two decades later, that grin still returns every time I watch the film.
A Greek chorus propelling the story through the use of Motown and Doo Wop. A motorcycle riding, leather jacket clad Sadist who makes a living as a dentist. A talking plant with a thirst for human blood and aspirations for world domination. A gentle love story between two lovable losers who don’t feel that they deserve each other. This film may not be for everybody, but it was most certainly for me. Simultaneously cynical and idealistic, the film masterfully executes a delicate balance of tone. All at once, it’s a darkly humorous and satirical look at consumerism and human greed, a tragic tale of love, domestic abuse and murder. It manages to feel good-natured and fun with a healthy dose of nostalgia thanks to its bouncy and hummable 60s-inspired songs and perfectly calibrated performances.
This film probably shouldn’t exist. It was expensive and time consuming to make. The effects were complicated and required months and months of experimentation and rehearsal to get them right. According to Frank Oz, it took five weeks just to shoot the “Feed Me” musical sequence. As sophisticated as the Audrey II puppet was, it was impossible for the human puppeteers to move the foam fast enough to match with the dialogue. So to achieve the look that the plant was talking and interacting with the human characters, they had to film those sequences at a lower frame rate, so that it would play faster in post production. Therefore, if Moranis shares a shot with Audrey II, he had to sing and perform slowly to match the puppets speed so that it would all look normal when it was sped up for the completed film. It’s incredibly seamless. I’ve looked for the cracks in the illusion, and they just aren’t there. I can’t imagine how torturous it was to shoot for Moranis and the puppeteers, but the end result is nothing less than astounding.
It’s impossible to talk about this film without mentioning the ending(s), though I’ll save a dissection of the theatrical ending versus the intended ending for another day. After years of wanting to see the original intended ending that is more true to the stage version, I actually prefer the film’s theatrical ending. Frank Oz and company actually made a different movie than what they set out to make, and the intended ending just didn’t sync up with the film that they had created. Oz’s version of the more Faustian ending was even more brutal than the stage version, and ultimately, the film doesn’t quite earn that brutality for it’s leads. As a filmmaker myself, a tough lesson I continue to learn is that sometimes you have to acknowledge that a film has taken on a life of its own and its better to just embrace that. As tough as I’m sure it was to see all that hard work cut from the finished product, they made the right call for the film that they made.
It’s hard to pin down exactly why this film has resonated with me so much over the years. For starters, technical achievements aside, the movie is just plain fun to watch. And I’m sure as a quiet lonely kid in a small Missouri town with low self esteem, I related to Seymour. I wasn’t living on Skid Row in New York City, but I was stuck in a rundown former mining town that was well past its prime, and I yearned to get out as soon as possible. But the cautionary tale of Little Shop is universal. While it’s unlikely that any of us with have to deal with blood thirsty talking plants anytime soon, the film does confront the moral grey areas that we face everyday. What’s ethical and how far one is willing to go. And how our moral judgement can be clouded by the things (or the person) we yearn for the most. Little Shop of Horrors isn’t the first film to explore these ideas, and it won’t be the last, but it just might be the most fun.
