Little Shop of Horrors, The (UK)
The non-musical original version
Certificate: PG
Running Time: 70 mins
Retail Price: £15.99
Release Date:
Content Type: Movie
Synopsis:
The original movie of this classic black comedy/horror about a rather dim-witted young man, Seymour (Jonathan haze), working for $10 a week in Mushnick`s flower shop on skid row who develops an intelligent, bloodthirsty plant. He names the plant `Audrey Junior` and as it grows, it demands human meat for substenance and Seymour is forced to kill in order to feed it.
Jack Nicholson has a notable cameo part as an undertaker, Wilbur Force, who is a masochistic dental patient, and the film also features the writer Charles Griffith as a hold-up man and the voice of `Audrey Junior`. Sources differ but it was reputed that the film was shot in just two or three days and, in 1961, it was billed as `The Funniest Picture This Year!`.
The film inspired the well-known off-Broadway hit musical and a musical/comedy remake starring Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene was made in 1986.
Special Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Video Tracks:
Standard 1.33:1
Audio Tracks:
Dolby Digital Mono English
Directed By:
Roger Corman
Written By:
Charles B. Griffith
Starring:
Dick Miller
Jackie Joseph
Jack Nicholson
Mel Welles
Jonathan Haze
Soundtrack By:
Fred Katz
Director of Photography:
Archie R. Dalzell
Editor:
Marshall Neilan Jr.
Producer:
Roger Corman
Distributor:
Eureka Video
Your Opinions and Comments
The Little Shop of Horrors
Goodtimes DVD
Region: 0 (USA), NTSC
B&W
Average bitrate: mb/s
Ratio: 1.40:1 (4:3)
Chapters: 12
Soundtrack: English DD mono
Subs: None
Extras: None
Cert: PG
Cover Design: Cheaply designed cover but serves well in the context of the edition and
film. Average
Duration: 71 minutes
The Film
Dated and cheap horror spoof, looks often like it was spun on set. Overall, pretty entertaining for weirdos like myself.
The Video
A dated film with a dated video quality, but Goodtimes has found good quality source material to master their copy. This is an open matted presentation in 1.40:1 aspect ratio. I suspect the original aspect ratio was either 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 although this presentation serves the film well.
I'll make a note of the few problems with the transfer, one is some moderate amount of edge enhancement, the sharpness levels have consistently been set too high. The other problem is MPEG artefacting in the form of posterization on blank grey objects such as walls and skys. Otherwise there were very few inherent problems with the image. As this is an early example of the medium (2000) I'm not going to nitpick this image further. For the casual viewer it will be pretty flawless.
The Audio
Sonically this is also a very dated aspect, even more so than the image of the disc. It's well presented in mono sound with very few source element artefacts, but with such a recording you'll never get past mediocre and mediocre is what we get.
The entire soundtrack has a distinct lack of dynamic range and tinnyness in dialogue. The music soundtrack is on the other hand a little heavy, lacking highs and has too muddled lows. I suppose all problems here are inherent in the original mix so I'm not going to carp about the audio much more.
The Extras
There are absolutely no extras in sight on the disc. The basic material (scenes, subtitles, menus) are not even up to standard