Review of Little Shop of Horrors (1986) by Edith N — 15 Feb 2011

The Version Without Jack Nicholson.

The director of this movie had him some experience with puppets going in. He hired his boss's kid, too, in one of the only actual puppeteering credits to his name. Still, I'm suspecting maybe this is the sort of movie people think of when they think, "Frank Oz has done not-Muppet stuff?" I mean, you know, if they know who Frank Oz is. Because, you know, puppet. It's also true that it's really among the only not-Muppet stuff he's done, though I feel the list should be longer. In my head, he's done things a little less funny, and not just [i]What About Bob?[/i] At any rate, he was doubtless able to draw on a lot of his Muppet experiences here. There's the complicated puppetry, of course, but there's also the songs. This was the third movie Oz had worked on which got nominated for its music. Alas, none of them won; I maintain, though, that "Rainbow Connection" will long outlive a song from [i]Norma Rae[/i].

Seymour Krelborn (Rick Moranis) is a schnook. He works for Mr. Mushnik (Vincent Gardenia, appropriately enough) in a failing florist shop down on Skid Row. He tends strange plants in the basement and pines for the lovely but vacuous Audrey (Ellen Greene, who originated the role in the stage production). One day, during a total eclipse of the sun, he encounters a strange little plant. He suggests to Mr. Mushnik that putting interesting and unusual plants in the window will increase trade and, oddly, it works, causing Christopher Guest to drop a hundred bucks on roses. Only it turns out that Audrey II (Levi Stubbs), as he names the plant, only thrives on one food. Human blood. [i]Fresh[/i] human blood. And when Seymour is basically passing out from blood loss, Audrey begins to talk and suggests that Audrey's boyfriend, Orin Scrivello, DDS (Steve Martin), maybe has a bit to spare . . . .

Steve Martin is positively brilliant in this. Oh, I was amused by Rick Moranis, and I thought his singing voice was surprisingly good. But if you're going to watch it for one character, it's going to be Scrivello. He's never going to be an opera star, but we knew going in that he sings at least well enough for his anthem, "Dentist!" He and Bill Murray, colleagues of old, get a great sequence together wherein Martin's sadistic dentist goes to operate on Murray's masochistic patient--I seem to remember that this was Nicholson's role in the original--but just loses heart. It's no fun if the guy [i]wants[/i] you to hurt him, after all. I'm not going to claim that Martin comes off as genuinely threatening, because you know he's still Steve Martin under that black wig and the Vitalis. However, Steve Martin does manage to look as though he'd enjoy trying to make you think he'd want to hurt you. He's having fun with the role, and while it wouldn't work if everyone in the movie were, he needs to in order to keep it a comedy.

Of course, we need the total deadpan from everyone else. The only way for Audrey II to seem like a real threat is for Seymour to believe "she" is one. We have to be able to overlook Scrivello. While the Greek chorus of Crystal (Tichina Arnold), Ronette (Michelle Weeks), and Chiffon (Tisha Campbell-Martin) works in the artificial world of the movie, and while they must be above the action in order to sell the piece, we must believe that the characters believe their world. We know it's silly when Seymour encounters a random doo-wop group (including Danny John-Jules, or Cat from [i]Red Dwarf[/i]), but Seymour must act as though it's perfectly normal. Audrey, the original Audrey, dreams of a perfect suburban home as the best thing one can attain, and that's the right thing for her character. Oz chose not to film anything on location because he knew that it would break the illusion. This cannot happen in the Real World, and the suggestion that there's one out there would kill the mood.

There is also, one should note, a lot of sexual subtext to the film. Someone has written that Audrey II is phallic, and that's not true. Towards the end, Audrey II has phallic shoots, but that's it. Audrey II is yonic. The character is clearly male, of course, despite a female name, but he might just as well be the vagina dentata. There's also the Martin/Murray scene. Each is intending to get off on the other's reactions, and the punchline there is almost an old joke. ("A masochist says, 'Hurt me.' A sadist says, 'No.'") The movie is really exploring domination. Audrey II, as everyone should by now know, wants to take over the world through reproduction--Audrey II shoots will spread everywhere, is the plan. I'm finding myself wanting to write a Freudian analysis of the movie's fear of female fertility, but I think that would be taking everything far too seriously. However, it's worth noting that one of the things Scrivello calls Audrey when he's putting her down is "slut.".