The Little Shop of Horrors

Seymour Krelboined is a shy, clumsy young man working at a rundown flower shop on skid row, where he pines for his co-worker Audrey Fulquard, who is involved with someone else. After a peculiar eclipse, he comes into possession of an unusual plant. He tends it devotedly and names it Audrey Junior in her honour. The plant soon reveals two troubling traits: it can speak, and ordinary nourishment will not keep it alive. It needs human flesh and blood, and Seymour has to find ways to supply it. As the creature grows to remarkable size and draws curious customers to the failing shop, the arrangement becomes harder to sustain.

Roger Corman directed and produced the film, his fourth in a directing career whose chronology runs from The Wasp Woman in 1959 to House of Usher in 1960. He wrote the screenplay with Charles B. Griffith. Jonathan Haze plays Seymour, with Jackie Joseph as Audrey, Mel Welles as shop owner Gravis Mushnick, and supporting turns from Dick Miller, Myrtle Vail and Karyn Kupcinet. The film runs 73 minutes.

Released in 1960, the comedy-horror-fantasy draws a mixed but generally favourable response: on IMDb it holds 6.2 out of 10 from around 21,000 votes, on TMDB 6.3 from roughly 480, and a critics' rating of 6.4 from 17 reviews, placing critical and audience assessments fairly close together.