Blyss's Movie Review for:

Main Cast of Characters:

Jonathan Haze...........Seymour Kreilboind

Jackie Joseph..........Audrey Fulquard

Mel Welles..........Gravis Musknik

Myrtle Vail.........Winifred Kreilboind

Lynn Storey...Mrs. Hortense Feuchtwanger

Jack Nicholson...............Wilbur Force

Charles B. Griffith...............Kloy/Drunk At Dentist/Screaming Patient/Voice of Audrey Junior

1960; Rated: R. Genre: Horror; Suspense; 101 minutes

Wrongly billed?

The story unfolds in the confines of a flower shop. A woman is crying about needing flowers for a funeral to the owner. A man buys flowers just to eat them. As the owner is dealing with all of this, his worker Seymour is singing in the background and he yells at him to shut up. He obliges. A dentist calls and orders flowers for his waiting room and says he needs them right away. Mr. Mushnik, the owner, tells Seymour andw want him to arrange the flowers before taking them over to the dentist. Seymour cuts them up horribly and Mushnik is about to fire him when he promises to provide the owner with a special species of plant that he has been growing and one that will be nothing like anything he has ever seen. The owner agrees that if Seymour can produce such a flower then he can keep his job. Seymour goes home to his usual life with his hypochondriac mother and he fusses over his plant. When he brings the plant in, no one likes it except Audrey, the sweet girl that Seymour works with at the flower shop so he names it after her, Audrey Junior. After Audrey convinces the owner to give Seymour more time for the plant, he says that Seymour must produce the plant soon or his and Audrey's jobs will be history. Seymour tries everything he knows and nothing is working. Then as he is moving the plant, it bites him and feeds on Seymour's blood from his cut. He squeezes his own blood into the plant and it thrives. Mushnik is thrilled when he sees the plant and promises him a raise in his salary. It draws in a lot of people to the store just to look at it and business starts to boom. But then the plant dies as the lack of blood drains it. Seymour mopes and accidentally kills someone when he gets angry at himself. He feeds the body to the plant. The more humans it is fed, the bigger it gets. But will Seymour get found out or will the plant eventually get him too?

I wrote a lot about this movie because it fascinated me even though it was very goofy. I guess the special effects were good for the time period the movie was made in and I especially liked the ending when the plant finally ate its master. The plant was the best part of the movie. Then when the blooms opened up and we were able to see all of the faces of the people the plant had eaten, that was really eerie. The really strange thing about this movie is that it was billed as "Little Shop of Horrors starring Jack Nicholson". It may have been Jack Nicholson's first movie but he was not in it very much at all. When he talked, he sounded like he was about 16 years old. It was funny to see him in something and being so young. I have always been accustomed to and attracted to the "older Jack". But as always, Jack did not disappoint. Especially when he plays a psycho as he did in this movie. Jack can play it to the hilt.

This movie is one I picked up on a clearance sale at Wal-Mart. It is a permanent in my collection for a once in a while movie.

I rate this movie: 7

Blyss