‘Little Shop of Horrors’ plants on a new, dark ending
The world is in big trouble: A giant man-eating plant is about wreak global destruction.
Fathom Events is bringing the beloved rock musical Little Shop of Horrors back to theaters Oct. 29 and 31 with an elaborate 23-minute ending cut from the original movie before its release in 1986.
That’s bad news for the film’s nerdy flower-shop couple, Seymour (Rick Moranis) and Audrey (Ellen Greene). As fans of the cult classic know, their love defeated Seymour’s man-eating plant Audrey II, otherwise known as the Mean Green Mother from Outer Space.
In the ending that has been restored and is hitting cineplexes for the first time, Audrey II’s plans for world domination succeed after (gasp!) the plant kills Seymour and Audrey.
More than three decades ago, test screening audiences who saw a rough cut hated that ending so much that director Frank Oz felt compelled to change it.
“The audiences loved (the movie). I felt like I was on a won- derful Hawaiian island lying on the sand. Until the two characters they love dearly get killed,” Oz says. “And then it was an icebox. It was palpable. Killing them was a disaster.”
The darker ending was based on the off-Broadway production.
“We wanted to be true to the show, in which both characters died and the plant won. But in theater, (a character) dies and then comes back to take a bow,” Oz says. “In movies, the great lesson is you die and you die. You don’t come back for a bow. That’s what upset the audience. And I learned a great lesson.”
Pressured by producer David Geffen and the potential for a disastrous release, Oz shot a new ending in which Seymour slays the killer plant before marrying his true love.
It worked. Though the critically acclaimed movie underperformed at the box office, Little Shop’s stature has grown Audrey II-style in home viewing. It’s admired for the intricate puppetwork that brings Audrey II (voiced by Levi Stubbs) to life and classic appearances such as Steve Martin as a sadistic, leather-clad dentist (and Audrey’s equally brutal boyfriend).
The original ending was almost a forgotten footnote until Warner Bros. fully restored Little Shop in 2012, which included bringing the discarded ending to life, right down to mini-Audrey II plants spreading around the globe and the giant-sized Audrey II attacking New York City Godzilla-style..
“They spent more than a year getting the old footage that we didn’t throw away,” Oz says. “They went down to the caves to find that and reconstitute it, make the sound effects, redo part of the music and the mix, re-colorize it and cut it back in.”
This restored ending was part of a 2012 DVD release and shown as a masterwork at New York Film Festival, where the crowd ate it up.
The director is so pleased with the results that he wants the revived finale to be the official Little Shop ending, as originally intended.
“There will be people who like the new and original ending, but half of the people are going to be like ‘That’s dark!’ ” Oz says. “I accept that. It’s kind of what it is.”