Little Shop of Horrors
If you were born in the eighties and grew up through the entire renaissance period of Disney then these men are responsible for bringing so much glee into your life. Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman are the reasons we joyfully singing about guests, mermaids and a prince in disguise. Menken and Ashman are the duo created most of the tunes for the likes of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and filled out nineties animated movies with brilliant enthusiastic musical timings.
But the pair had originally synced their talents up to deliver one of the best cult musicals of all time. And with a Muppet at the helm too!
Little Shop of Horrors, originally an Off Broadway musical, was brought to electrifying realism in this 1986 comedy. Based in the slums of New York City, affectionately called Skid Row, the story revolves around its poor workers at a miserable flower shop. When a weird lightning bolt crashes down into a rival shop – geeky Seymour stumbles upon a weird looking plant that he buys in hopes to make to make it flourish, naming it after other employee Audrey whom he is in love with. As it grows, it becomes a much beloved attraction for the population of the city and soon the flower shop becomes extremely popular. But soon, Seymour discovers that the affectionately named Audrey II wants something fleshier than plant food to quench its hunger.
All the components of a fresh smelling cult musical is implanted into this film and roses grow from its groundwork. The key element from the roots to the blooming buds is the music. This is an utterly excellent rock and roll musical. The combination of Menken and Ashman really blossoms. Able to capture the frivolity and the fun of a massive singing whilst darker elements such as spousal abuse and, well, murder by plant,Little Shop of Horrors is a black comedy musical that gets the tone so superbly correct that you cannot help but reveal in the mayhem. Such song highlights include Supper Time (so rich in its darkness and vocals by Levi Stubbs that the chills go down your spin,) and The Dentist Song (where Audrey’s abusive boyfriend, played by Steve Martin, goes to town on exactly how evil he is in the most doo-wap of moments).
And Frank Oz directs a crazily eccentric musical – filled with the bleakness and the colours of puppet Audrey II that contrast in the most elaborate of ways. The puppet, manoeuvred by a whopping 19 people, was a difficult beast to capture. Yet on screen, it delightfully works – feeling like a real mean green motherfucker from outer space thanks to the design by Lye Coneway and the excruciating puppeteers to capture it’s anthropomorphic likeness. Added to the humours and bleak themes, Oz has greatly mastered the rambunctiousness of the original stage production whilst breathing more soul into the characters. Helped along by the twitchy Rick Moranis and the great Ellen Greene, this film adaptation is astonishing and exhilarating!
Along with a heap of eighties guest star actors from Christopher Guest or Bill Murray, Little Shop of Horrors is one of the greatest cult musicals of all time – receiving critical acclaim on release and a whole heap of fans ever since. Frank Oz and the songs from the excellent duo make this film rich and plentiful, hilarious and gloomy.