Wonkette Movie Night: Little Shop Of Horrors (1986)

'The guy sure looks like plant food to me.'

“Feed me, Seymour!”

That’s not a cat asking for second breakfast, that’s Audrey II, a very hungry singing plant and the star of Little Shop Of Horrors, who is demanding a very specific meal from the man who discovered it. Seymour is a botanophile, always looking for something exotic and unusual to brighten Mushnik’s Skid Row Florist, the shop where he works and crushes on Audrey, the floral arranger. He finds the horticultural anomaly in Chinatown during a total solar eclipse. Seymour pays $1.95 for the plant that he believes may be some type of Venus Flytrap and brings it back to the florist shop which also happens to be his home.

Seymour dreams of a better life and a growing, talking Audrey II convinces him that those dreams can come true if Seymour just brings him someone to eat. Maybe a bad person, like an abusive, sadistic dentist who happens to also be a jerk.

As three singers named Ronette, Chiffon, and Crystal drift through scenes and provide insights throughout the film, they are joined by the inhabitants of Skid Row, singing about what life is like when you live

“Downtown, where the folks are broke, you go

Downtown, where your life's a joke, you go

Downtown, where you buy your token, you go

Home to Skid Row (home to Skid Row)”

Yes, this is a movie musical! Here is where it gets complicated. It is based on an Off-Broadway stage play that was based on a movie that was based on a short story or maybe a novel. Little Shop of Horrors was inspired by the stage play of the same name by Howard Ashman with music by Alan Menken. They took the story from the 1960 movie by Roger Corman, who was in turn possibly inspired by either John Collier's 1932 short story "Green Thoughts" or "The Reluctant Orchid" by Arthur C. Clarke.

It also inspired an animated series in 1991 titled Little Shop with the first episode being Bad Seed.

All about a simple story of a boy falling for girl and fighting a man eating plant for survival of the human race.

Little Shop Of Horrors is available for free on the Internet Archive. $3.99 in the usual places.

Little Shop Of Horrors stars Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Steve Martin, Christopher Guest, Vincent Gardenia, Michelle Weeks, Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, John Candy, Jim Belushi, and Levi Stubbs. Directed by Frank Oz.

To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules go to WonkMovie.

The animated short is Lovebites from the Lovebites Team: Agaki Bautista, Aram Davern, Michael De Caria, Jonathon Iskov, Peter Lam, and Doug Walker.

Our next Movie Night selection is Superman: The Movie (1978) and it is available with subscription on HBO Max, Hulu and Sling. $3.99 in the usual places. Free on the Internet Archive (has an extra 3 minute intro you can FF past).