Film

The Little Shop of Horrors

Name: The Little Shop of Horrors
Genre: Horror, Comedy, Fantasy
Released: 1960
Cast: Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles, Dick Miller, Myrtle Vail

Roger Corman's 1960 debut feature is gleefully deranged: a needy carnivorous plant, a doomed romance, and gallows humor that punches both ways. It's lo-fi horror-comedy that knows exactly how absurd it is. For anyone who loves horror that refuses to take itself seriously, or comedy that gets genuinely dark.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy cheap-looking, jokey B-movies where the gags land because the filmmakers clearly had more nerve than money, and the deadpan mischief matters more than the scares.

Skip it if you need horror that grows genuinely frightening, since the scares here are mostly a wink and the laughs arrive more reliably than any chills.

What it asks of you: It runs barely over an hour at a brisk, almost breathless clip, so you can settle in for a short evening and let its sly absurdity carry you along.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Eat the Rich1987

Ealing sensibility meets punk nihilism: cannibalism as class commentary, shot with imagination that far outstrips its budget. Darkly funny, genuinely unsettling, and brimming with invention.

But Deliberately crude and dated in a way that doesn't soften with age. If you need your satire subtle, this will feel like being hit with it.

Gremlins1984

Joe Dante channels the same DNA—creature-feature setup, small-town America, tonal whiplash between cute and carnage. Black comedy wrapped in a Spielbergian bow, with genuine invention in the set pieces.

But The humor lands softer than you might expect, and the second act gets tied up in plot mechanics that slow the momentum.

Tremors1990

A script that trusts you to enjoy both the monster-attack tension and the comedy equally. Smart, warm, and bursting with practical effects innovation. It gets the balance Corman was chasing exactly right.

But Completely earnest in its sincerity. There's no ironic distance; some viewers prefer their monster movies to wink more.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Little Shop of Horrors

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street2007

Both are stories about outcast men creating living things (or disposing of bodies) through obsession and failed love, played for horror and dark comedy equally. Same engine, different fuel.

Sondheim's musical about a revenge-murder barber who feeds his victims to his baker-partner's pies. Operatic darkness, genuine wit, and the most sophisticated riff on the same obsession—feeding people to make them disappear—ever recorded.

But It's sung-through opera on British TV in 1979, with all the staginess that implies. The register is miles from Corman's scrappy fun.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street poster

Basket Case1982

Frank Henenlotter's midnight-movie masterpiece: grotesque, funny, heartbreaking, and shot on a shoestring in Times Square. The special effects are deliberately crude, and somehow that makes it work better.

But It's grimy and deliberately ugly. The practical gore effects are genuinely disturbing, not stylized—this isn't retro-cool to everyone.

Phantom of the Paradise1974

Brian De Palma's rock opera nightmare: operatic emotion in a B-movie frame, gorgeous trash cinema. Murder mystery meets Faustian deal, scored to glam rock. Pure cinema joy.

But Wildly uneven in tone. Some of the jokes land nowhere, and the pacing occasionally staggers under its own ambition.

The Fly1986

David Cronenberg remakes the 1958 film as tragedy-horror: visceral body-horror played completely straight, with genuine pathos underneath the goo. Fascinatingly grotesque and unexpectedly moving.

But The practical effects are sustained and graphic in ways that push beyond the playful into genuinely nauseating territory.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!1978

Exactly what it sounds like, played with commitment and genuine affection for bad-movie absurdity. The jokes come fast, the effects are deliberately terrible, and the whole thing is infectious.

But It's a one-joke film that relies entirely on you finding that joke as funny as it does. If the premise doesn't make you smile, nothing here will.

The Hideous Sun Demon1958

A solar-radiation creature feature made for almost nothing, with disarming sincerity and genuine weirdness. Predates Corman's sensibility in interesting ways, and the practical makeup is fascinatingly crude.

But Genuinely low-budget in ways that can feel like you're watching an experiment rather than a finished film. Patience required.

Creature from the Black Lagoon1954

The template for every creature-feature that followed, done with real craft and underwater cinematography that still impresses. It's where this lineage starts, and it's undeniably well-made.

But It plays it straight in ways that make it feel slower than Corman's approach. If you're coming to this for comedic horror, you'll want the laughs that never quite arrive.

Hannibal2001

Both center on a brilliant, hungry creature (plant or person) that the protagonist serves through misguided devotion. Both ask what we're willing to feed our obsessions.

Ridley Scott's trashy, opulent follow-up to Silence of the Lambs: utterly committed to bad taste, exquisitely shot, and genuinely entertaining in ways that confound critics. High-budget Corman energy.

But It's aggressively ugly in its sexuality and violence. The tone is so muddled between camp and earnestness that some viewers find it just offensive without the payoff.

House1977

Both refuse the boundary between comedy and horror, between cute and grotesque. Both move by dream-logic rather than plot, and ask you to enjoy the tone-whiplash as the point.

Nobuhiko Obayashi's Japanese horror-fantasy is formally wild and tonally untethered: cute, creepy, psychedelic, and absurd moment to moment. No budget can contain the imagination. Pure cinema from another tradition.

But It's structurally illogical and visually incoherent by design. If you need narrative logic or visual consistency, this will feel broken.