Little Shop of Horrors or Comedy?
My almost-fourteen-year-old daughter, Eva, and I have watched quite a few movies as part of a “Mommy and Me” horror film review collection designed specifically for Billy Crash. A lot of these movies aren’t even good, but most were selected for special reasons: All of them raised questions about what makes horror effective and enjoyable and sparked conversations between us. I would like to believe that maybe this exercise is teaching my daughter about critical thinking.
In this vein, I proposed the question to her: What makes a horror movie horror?
And I offered two films to answer it: the original 1960 low budget, black and white Little Shop of Horrors and the 1986 musical comedy version of the same story directed by Frank Oz of Muppet puppeteering fame. Neither film ever meant to be considered as horror, but as satire. Yet, mention the film or the musical and it’s one of those stories most horror fans know.
Something Borrowed, Something Bloomed
I think Eva’s come to the conclusion that neither film fits as horror, though Roger Corman’s black comedy may have fit the bill back in the day. Modern day television and movies bombard us with violence, degradation, disease, sexual images, and the goriest details of apocalyptic misbehavior among mankind. Between censorship during the mid-twentieth century and the optimistic advances of science in the post war era, a homicidal plant might be enough to spook people.
The newer version of Little Shop of Horrors features an All-Star-Cast-of-the-Eighties while mimicking quite perfectly the characters from Charles B. Griffith’s screenplay. It also falls into the science fiction/romance category of film as the man-eating plant in the modern version comes from outer space. The plant hoped to populate the planet using humanity as a food source.
Also in the remake, the relationship between Audrey and Seymour plays center stage. In the original, Seymour (Jonathon Haze) grows Audrey Junior by crossing Venus Fly Trap seeds with another plant species. Whereas Seymour (Rick Moranis) in the 1986 version helps Audrey escape her abusive boyfriend, the older generation Seymour can’t connect with Audrey because he displays such social awkwardness around her and babies and favors the plant, Audrey Junior.
The original Little Shop of Horrors employs multiple elements of farce, a great deal of physical comedy, chase scenes and ridiculous behavior— from the plant connoisseur who eats plants instead of admires them to Seymour’s hypochondriac mother who cooks with cod liver oil and Epsom salts. But the potential for horror lies as an undercurrent: the sadistic dentist and Seymour performing dentistry on a patient, the plant growing blooms that display the faces of its victims, the way the plant and Seymour accumulate bodies, and the very thought that a plant could control and eat people.
As for the more modern version, the singing and dancing and colorful period clothing don’t detract from these same threads. Audrey II, now an alien, drives people to murder. It’s a tad more graphic in its violence and in the same way goofy in its comedy.
Pruning Definitions
“So how can it be funny? Why is it not horror?” I ask the teen.
“In my opinion,” Eva says, “A horror movie makes you fear for the character. Sometimes a horror movie can have aspects of comedy, but that takes away from your concern for the character. I wasn’t afraid for Seymour’s life.”
But, I ask her, “Isn’t it more personal?”
“It depends what you find scary,” she answers.
I asked her which version had the capacity to be scarier. She opted for the musical. And here is why: The cinematography in black and white doesn’t allow for the depth of detail one can see in color. Those details, in her mind, add to the realism.
I think the theatrical elements of the original Little Shop of Horrors, like the farce-like humor and the construction of the characters, help it maintain its dark comedy focus. In the musical, the script builds on those darkly humorous aspects and makes them ridiculous. We, as an audience, don’t think too seriously about man-eating plants from outer space.
As for Eva, I’m still trying to get her to think about the psychology of why people enjoy horror films and why we like to give ourselves a controlled experience of fright. She’s not there yet… but maybe with the next movie.
The Plot Sickens: Find The Lost Boys with Angel Ackerman!
Crash Analysis Support Team
Angel Ackerman
Angel Ackerman and Eva Parry
After a fifteen-year career in print journalism, Angel Ackerman has studied world history, (specifically post-colonial Francophone Africa, Muslim relations, and contemporary Western politics) and traveled several continents. Her recent publications include the poem This Paris in Step Away magazine, an essay on the weather and travel on the Horn of Africa in Rum Punch Press, academic encyclopedia entries on Djibouti, a review in Global Studies South on a book examining famine in Somalia, book reviews from eons ago for Hippocampus Magazine and an upcoming essay on chickens. Follow her on Twitter.
Eva Parry will enter high school this fall but has already spent a season in the low brass section of the marching band carrying a sousaphone. When not irritating her mother by piling as many clothes and candy wrappers as possible on her bedroom floor, she explores various writing forms and antagonizes her cats. She has known Billy Crash most of her life and never stops making noise or talking, which once resulted in her missing a catch and taking a Frisbee in the mouth.
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(Still photo from Little Shop of Horrors via Wight Blood.)