Review #69: 'The Little Shop of Horrors' (1960)

Shot in just two days by B-movie maestro Roger Corman, this micro-budget horror-comedy tells the story of a florist's assistant who cross-breeds a plant that turns out to be a man-eater. With his business struggling and his idiotic assistant Seymour (Jonathan Haze) causing more trouble than good, Gravis Mushnik (Mel Welles) doesn't know where to turn. But as Seymour's oddity grows bigger by the day, it starts to attract the crowds. The only problem is, the bigger it gets, the more food it needs, and available human flesh isn't that easy to come by. If this wasn't hard enough, Seymour also has to romance the dippy Audrey (Jackie Joseph), and take care of his hypochondriac mother who thinks a bowl of baby oil makes a good meal.

The fact that it was shot in two days using the leftover sets of a previous production is quite amazing, even though the film isn't exactly of high quality. The problem is that it really shows. The lack of time didn't exactly open up opportunities for anything other than mundane camerawork and shaky sets. The main setting, the florists, basically has two cameras pointing to the centre from different sides, and the whole feels like a sitcom rather than a feature. Of course, this is Roger Corman, and things like that don't really matter in his films. They are about entertainment and shameless exploitation, and the film is both.

What surprised me the most about the film is how genuinely funny it is. What lacks in visual flair is made up for in the script, which is fast-paced, quirky and every now and then a little bit clever. It reminded me of the comedies of the Marx Brothers (of course, nowhere near the quality), where the characters would zip back and forth between jokes and innuendos. The comedy has a definite Jewish feel to it, similar to that of Woody Allen (again, nowhere near the quality).

The film is also outright bizarre and inventive. An early role for Jack Nicholson sees him play a creepy and over-excited sadomasochist who pays a visit to the dentist, looking to have his teeth torn from their roots. It's the role that Bill Murray would play to hilarious effect in the musical remake starring Rick Moranis. It will hardly appease gore-hounds as there is next to none and the effects are pretty bad and very silly. But this is more comedy than horror, and it is certainly enjoyable.


Directed by: Roger Corman
Starring: Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Jack Nicholson
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie