An incredible production design, some super catchy songs and a very weird sensibility make this a fun and memorable movie.

I’ve avoided this one for years. I never had an interest in a movie musical about a man eating plant. However I finally gave it a shot, and I was pleasantly surprised. I’m even listening to the soundtrack as I write this.

For those who don’t know, the movie follows a floral shop on skid row where a nerdy florist Seymour, played by Rick Moranis, discovers a strange carnivorous plant Audrey II voiced by Levi Stubbs and brought to life by a team of 21 puppeteers. Seymour discovers that the plant will grow when it is fed blood and the plant soon develops a taste for people and seeks to take over the world.

The first thing that caught my eye was the production design. The sets are absolutely incredible. The movie looks amazing. It was filmed in Pinewood studios on the James Bond sound stage, and they created a massive world for this wild story to take place in. Every inch of the place feels grimy and real and lived in, but also heightened in the most theatrical way possible.

In fact this movie feels like seeing a show on Broadway. It has the theatricality and scale of a Broadway musical. It doesn’t shy away from the more over the top elements of a musical. When characters sing, the world joins in. None of the gritty realism of modern musicals. This is big emotions, compressed time, and over the top expressiveness of the stage.

But it never feels stagey. It feels like a movie. The filmmaking and the theatricality work in perfect harmony to enhance both the theatre and the film.

On top of all that the puppet work is unbelievable! The team that created all of the AudreyII’s through its growth from a tiny plant to a giant monster deserves all the praise for the way this movie works. Without the stunning and convincing plant you don’t have a movie.

As far as the story goes it’s hard to judge. The movies original ending tested badly with early audiences, so they rewrote and reshot the ending. The new ending works. It surprisingly doesn’t feel rushed or anti climactic. It pays off the love story and ties the story up in a neat and conventional bow. the original ending was much weirder and much darker.

The original ending pays off a lot of the themes and ideas of the original story in a more satisfying and logical way, but it is kind of a bummer. I understand why people didn’t like it. The movie sets them up to expect a comedy for the lead characters and it ends up a tragedy for them.

Whichever version you see I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. It has this grandiose camp sensibility that is so fun. It had Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist and Bill Murray as a masochistic patient. it has great songs, a stunning production design and really memorable story.

This was my cup of tea.