Little Shop of Horrors
Trailer
Synopsis
Seymour Krelborn scrapes by as a florist's assistant on Skid Row until a solar eclipse puts a carnivorous, talking plant in his hands — one he names Audrey II. The creature draws customers and fame to the shop, but demands human blood in return, and as it grows, so do the compromises Seymour makes to keep it fed and win the affection of his coworker Audrey. The plant puppets carry as much of the film as any human performer.
Context & Trivia
Audrey II was built across seven growth stages with no CGI, no blue screen and no digital optical effects: from a hand-sized seedling to a nearly four-metre construction requiring up to sixty operators working simultaneously. To achieve convincing lip-sync during musical numbers, every scene featuring the plant was shot at reduced speed — twelve to sixteen frames per second — then brought up to standard twenty-four in the edit. The human cast moved and mouthed lyrics in slow motion on set, while Levi Stubbs's vocal tracks — he was lead singer of The Four Tops — were run through a harmonizer to stay coherent for the performers. Three different scales of the Mushnik flower shop set were built to match each puppet size.
Brian Henson, son of Jim and current chairman of The Jim Henson Company, served as one of Audrey II's principal operators, most notably during the 'Feed Me' sequence. His sister Heather Henson appears in a cameo as a dental patient. Director Frank Oz — with decades performing Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear, and the creator of Yoda in Star Wars — brought artists, designers and technicians from that same circle to the production, though the film was not an official Creature Shop project. At the end of every shooting day, the plants required full maintenance: cleaning, patching and repainting, the invisible craft cost behind every single frame.
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Puppeteers
Brian Henson, Mak Wilson, Anthony Asbury, David Barclay, Michael Bayliss, Gary Braden, Kevin Clash, Sue Dacre, Graham Fletcher, William Todd Jones, Mike Quinn, Terry Lee Randall, Robert Tygner, Ronnie Le Drew, Ian Tregonning, Peter L. Baird, Lynn Baird, Sheri Lynn, Geraldine Jones, Karen Prell, Noel MacNeal, Martin P. Robinson, Frank Oz
Voices
Levi Stubbs, Stan Jones
Puppet design
Martin P. Robinson, Nicholas Mahon
Puppet companies
The Jim Henson Company
Puppet building
Lyle Conway
Direction
Frank Oz
Cast
Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, Steve Martin, Levi Stubbs
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