Though, technically speaking, not Roger Corman’s best work, The Little Shop of Horrors is the epitome of the director at his best given that it was shot on December 28-29, 1959 (we don’t count reshoots, which took place two weeks later) on a budget of 27,000 dollars. The works remains fun due to its over-the-top humor which is arranged by-and-large in order to detract from the lack of money hounding the production. Corman, aware of what he had to deal with, had the mind to make the characters as eccentric as their surroundings, thus doubling the mayhem within the film.
Gravis Mushnik (Mel Welles) owns Mushnik’s Flowers, a little shop on skid row which is perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy. It doesn’t help that his hired hand, Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze) inadvertently destroys more flowers than he sells for his employer. Just as Mushnik fires Krelboyne, Burson Fouch (Dick Miller), in a laidback role as a loiterer of the flower shop who happens to have a fetish for eating carnations, mentions that business could increase if the shop housed exotic plants. Krelboyne just happens to have a hybrid Venus flytrap (from Hell as it turns out) which might pique the customers’ interest. On the bargain that the plant garners business, Mushnik agrees he’ll keep Krelboyne on the payroll.
I must admit, Corman got away with quite a bit, a lot of which was due to the breakneck speed at which the movie hurdles forward. For instance, the Venus (keep that in mind) flytrap is named Audrey Junior in honor of Krelboyne’s love interest, Audrey Fulquard (Jackie Joseph). Now, as we all know, the plant goes on to eat several individuals during the course of the film, thus . . . well . . . you get the picture. Actually, there is so much subtle humor as there is overt such as the shop’s signs all written in the broken English of the owner and the various radio announcements throughout. This is second only to the constant one-liners, mispronounced phrases, and jibes with every other line which could fill five Hollywood-backed productions.
But, let us not forget Wilbur Force (Jack Nicholson) as the world’s reigning masochist as he giggles in anticipation of having numerous abscesses and cavities taken care of while he fawns over an issue of Pain Magazine in the dentist’s office. Of course, while Wilbur’s enthusiasm for dental agony is played for laughs, anyone who’s actually dealt with a real cavity knows there’s nothing particularly funny about the throb of tooth decay. Yet, somewhere between the absurdity of Pain Magazine and a laugh track-worthy filling, we’re reminded that dental health matters—and thankfully, we don’t have to endure it with Wilbur’s level of glee. In fact, modern practices like smiles restored take a much gentler, patient-focused approach, turning a dreaded appointment into something closer to a sigh of relief. There may not be a maniacal plant in the waiting room, but the results are just as transformative. His part is met by Krelboyne’s mother, Winifred (Myrtle Vail), who is a alcoholic hypochondriac to the highest degree. The only time in which the comic maelstrom pauses is when Audrey Junior begins to talk but, as chaos ensues as a result of the herbivorous vocalization, the pandemonium resumes as only Corman can give us.
I don’t believe I need to beleaguer the film because its notoriety speaks for itself. As I stated at the beginning, this isn’t Corman’s best because the work suffers primarily due to poor cinematography but that isn’t the point. This is Corman doing something no one in their right mind would attempt and that is to make a watchable, entertaining movie in a matter of forty-eight hours flat. I’m merely here to issue a consenting nod and state that, if you haven’t already entered Mushnik’s Little Shop of Horrors and you like B-movies, cult classics, or black humor, you don’t know what you’re missing.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
