{2jtab: Movie Review}

Played for laughs and not for scares, famed producer/director Roger Corman’s cult classic from 1960 arrives on blu-ray with little fanfare, but what a celebration it is for its fans.  The Little Shop of Horrors is a comedy masterwork that still resonates with its audience.  As the years pass, it certainly becomes easier to call this what it is: a classic of ceremonious camp.  While it is most known for showcasing the early bizarreness of a then unknown Jack Nicholson, The Little Shop of Horrors proves to be more than just the launching pad for one actor’s career.

Corman is the master of B-budgeted mayhem and often uses and reuses sets before destroyed by an eager to move on and be done with it studio system.  The Little Shop of Horrors, written by Charles B. Griffith (who also voices Audrey Jr.’s classic “Feed me” lines), manages to make the most of its deliciously restricted budget and recycles the sets and some of the actors used for Corman’s previous feature called A Bucket of Blood.  Shot in two days, there’s a mighty thunder rumbling above The Little Shop of Horrors’ skies to have made it onto the HD market in 2012.

In Skid Row, somewhere inside Los Angeles, a miserly Gravis Mushnick (Mel Welles) owns and operates a lowly flower shop.  He is visited by regulars only.  Mrs. Siddie Shiva (Leola Wendorff) makes daily visits to purchase flowers for the funerals as all her relatives are dying off.  Burson Fouch (Dick Miller) stops in over his lunch break to buy some carnations for his meal.  That’s right, you read correctly.  He eats the flowers for lunch.  Daily.

Mushnick’s two associates, Audrey Fulquard (Jackie Joseph) and Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze) are literally no help to him.  Meet the real dumb and dumber.  Oh, they might be sweet but the two of them certainly give “simple” a new definition.  They love each other, too.  Only Seymour’s hypochondriac mother, Winifred (Myrtle Vail), doesn’t want him to leave the nest so soon.

One day, the clumsy Seymour is tasked to pick up and revive a dying plant that could draw the crowds back (where they ever there?) to Skid Row.  Being the fool that he is, he accidentally “feeds” a few drops of blood to the plant when he cuts his finger.  The plant, crossbred from a butterwort and a Venus Flytrap, begins to grow and grow and grow as does its appetite for human blood, bone, and flesh.  Soon, it talks and wants more from its master than it should.  Much more.

With a demonic dentist (John Shaner), a masochistic patient (Jack Nicholson), a sacrificial prostitute, and Dragnet-like deadbeat detectives (Wally Campo and Jack Warford) rounding out its madcap mania, The Little Shop of Horrors produces a house of laughs and bloodcurdling good times.   Corman’s direction is quick and so is the film as it shaves off the horror edge and goes right for the laughs.  Audiences loved it when it was originally released and it pleases me to no end to suggest that the laughs are still there and still worth rolling on the floor for.  They are quick and quite witty and when the action falls a bit on the flatter side of things, note just how quickly the film moves along to shove something else at the camera that actually does work.  Fans and purists alike please make note of the fact that three of Little Shop's actors find themselves back in creature feature territory with Joe Dante's horror-comedy Gremlins as Murray and Sheila Futterman and Mrs. Ruby Deagle.  Feed me more, indeed.

For a quick fix of comedy and bizarre delights, one can never go wrong with a casual stroll through Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors.

{2jtab: Film Details}

MPAA Rating: This title has not yet been rated by the MPAA.
Director: Roger Corman
Writer: Charles B. Griffith
Cast: Jonathan Haze; Jackie Joseph; Mel Welles; Dick Miller
Genre: Comedy | Fantasy
Tagline: The flowers that kill in the Spring TRA-LA
Memorable Movie Quote: "No novocaine. It dulls the senses."
Theatrical Distributor: The Filmgroup
Home Video Distributor: Legend
Theatrical Release Date: August 5, 1960
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: March 6, 2012

Synopsis: A clumsy young man nurtures a plant and discovers that it's a bloodthirsty plant, forcing him to kill to feed it.

{2jtab: Blu-ray Review}

Component Grades Movie Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray Experience

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - March 6, 2012
Screen Formats: 1.33:1
Subtitles: None
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
Discs: 25GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD)
Region Encoding: Region A

Courtesy of Legend Films, The Little Shop of Horrors is presented in an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1 that has both the original black-and-white version (preferred) and the colorized version.  The original negative used hasn’t been polished or cleaned in any sense as there are debris and scratches in some scenes.  There’s a bit of damage to the print when Nicholson walks into the dentist’s office, but other than that the print is entirely damage free.  The black levels are consistently deep and the white levels never outshine the viewing area with reflection or shiny surfaces.   The colorized version, while tastefully done, is still not how I would choose to watch this film.  The colors are matted a bit and flesh tones look too similar to be natural.  The sound is presented in an appealing lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix, but – due to its original recording – there really is nothing of note to add to the sound field.  This is as simple as they come.

Supplements:

Commentary:

• Mike Nelson, from Mystery Science Theater 3000, provides the film’s commentary which, let’s face it, reads and sounds and operates more as a mass roasting (albeit a bit subdued than expected).  It’s a shame that we don’t have the Roger Corman approved release yet because I know for a fact there are a lot of interesting anecdotes about the filming of this feature that would be interesting to hear.

Special Features:

Other than getting two versions of the film, there are no supplemental materials.  Boo.

{2jtab: Trailer}

{/2jtabs}