The Little Shop of Horrors
Director: Roger Corman
Year Released: 1960
Rating: 3.0
Clever if clumsy (and roughly done ... but what do you want for a shoestring budget and 48 little hours?) black comedy that shows the dark side of self-promotion: ne'er do well Seymour brings odd plant Audrey Jr. into the flower shop where he works to draw in customers (and save his job), but the plant has an insatiable taste for blood. I realize the plant is voiced by screenwriter Charles Griffith, but it is still feminine in nature - not only appearance wise (it looks like feminine genitalia) but the fact that as a 'Venus' fly-trap-hybrid, it seems to only consume men (a bum, a robber, a sadistic dentist to name but three) - plus, not only is there a rough reference to the 'female flower,' there is no short of supply of individuals who want to stare at it (only major difference: Audrey Jr. consumes blood rather than expels it). The Jack Nicholson role is superfluous but funny - Jack's playing against type before he became a 'type' (here, he's a masochist) - and it's a damn fine thing that Corman found him.
