This is a horror movie about plants and dentistry, if you know me at all I am going to give this a high score. But really, folks, this is a classic musical horror film that is fun for the whole family. Rick Moranis is not the strongest singer but he makes up for it with heart. Please enjoy how moist they are able to keep the plant's mouth(s).
⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
Trigger Warning Suicidal Ideations
We meet our pretty hapless main characters Seymour and Audrey. Seymour is of course our plant obsessed little nerd and Audrey his main love interest. They work at a plant shop and while Seymour was perusing the wholesale flower market he found a peculiar little plant that he named Audrey II. It looks like a funky little Venus flytrap. Either way they put it in the window of the shop to drum up business and it worked like a charm, people came flooding in to buy the fakest flowers I’ve seen since Final Girls. Audrey dreams of being with Seymour somewhere green (not Skid Row) but keeps dating the creep she is with because she thinks she doesn’t deserve better. Seymour isn’t sure how to keep Audrey II alive and growing so he sings a whole song about it then cuts himself and the plant starts suckling the air so Seymour feeds it his blood and the plant grows! Wack! Business is still booming because the plant is getting them guest spots on the radio (guest star John Candy).
As Audrey II gets bigger and bigger it demands more blood from Seymour which is stressing him out and literally draining him. We find out Audrey's abusive boyfriend is Steve Martin and he is a crazy dentist who is a sadist (he loves causing pain to others), which would explain why Audrey is always so beaten up. Audrey II sings a song to Seymour about how he needs to eat a whole human being because he is a hungry boy and while Seymour isn’t happy about this at first they narrow in on Audrey’s boyfriend as the target and that makes Seymour happy. We have a special guest star from Bill Murray as a masochist who goes to the dentist and has just the best time ever. Then Seymour goes to the dentist boyfriend to kill him but doesn’t have to because the guy overdoses on laughing gas. The boyfriend asks, “What’d I ever do to you?” and Seymour simply replies, “Nothin’. It’s what you did to her.” Damn. What a baller. Then Seymour drags the body back to Audrey II, hacks it up, and feeds it to the plant. Wack.
Audrey is getting questioned by the police the next morning so Seymour goes over to her, it turns out her boyfriend is missing (shocking). Seymour suggests that maybe that isn’t a bad thing and Audrey tearfully agrees. They sing a song about how Seymour is suddenly there and it is a really good song. They also finally kiss! Things are really on the up and up, right? Wrong! Because the boss saw Seymour hacking up the body and waited ‘til today to say something. The boss is going to turn Seymour in but Audrey II has other plans (gulps that man right up). Seymour does more press with Audrey II and when he makes a little money he plans to run away with Audrey. Seymour takes Audrey aside and asks for her hand in marriage, she agrees and they will be wed that night! But on his way out the door Audrey II asks for more blood, more meat. Seymour refuses to kill anymore but says he will go to the butcher shop and get some fresh meat for the plant. When Seymour is gone, the crafty plant uses its vines to manipulate the phone and call Audrey, beckoning her over.
When Audrey arrives at the flower shop she is greeted by a simply massive plant that almost immediately grabs her with its vines and starts to gobble her up. Seymour comes through the door just in time to grab her feet but he is too late, she has already been gobbled too violently. They have a sad and romantic moment in the alley where Audrey can have her last words. She tells him that she wants him to feed her to the plant, so that her death means something or whatever. It is super sad and very dramatic but it’s her death so let her have this moment. After she passes Seymour places her gently in the plant's mouth and it eats her slowly. Then Seymour goes up to the top of a roof to (apparently) jump off but he is stopped by a salesman who is showing him that he took a clipping from Audrey II and made a new smaller plant and that they are going to be selling them to folks all over the USA. This rocks Seymour to his core and he runs back to the shop.
Seymour starts to argue with the plant about how its plan the whole time was to get itself spread all across the USA, that is why it helped Seymour get famous. The plant just laughs and laughs, grabbing Seymour with its vines and in general being much stronger now that it has three (3) bodies inside of it. It doesn’t take long before Seymour is eaten as well. Audrey II’s are on shelves all across the USA and soon they take over the USA. The Audrey II’s only need about one (1) and a half people before they can basically feed themselves so it really isn’t that unbelievable that a couple of schmucks wouldn’t do just that and doom the planet (thanks Rick Moranis). Now we sit just watching alien plants destroy buildings to rocking music while people and dogs flee in all directions. At least Audrey got one thing right, the future was green.
