Roger Corman famously filmed The Little Shop of Horrors in only two days. At least, he completed principal photography in two days (there were some reshoots) but why quibble about details?
It's amazing that a feature film could be completed in that amount of time and nothing short of a miracle that the finished product is such a delightful little gem. Don't get me wrong, it's still a cheaply made B picture but it's surprisingly charming. It has so much character, so many inventive ideas and so much quirk that it practically begs to be turned into a musical with a proper budget.
Aside from the obvious man-eating plant, there's plenty of other weirdness going on here. All of the characters are so over the top that they shoot straight past "broadly drawn" on their way to some form of Kabuki-comedy. Mr. Mushnik is Jewier than fucking Tevye, Audrey speaks with an inhumanly high voice, and Dr. Phoebus Farb and Wilbur Force are a match made in somewhere I never want to visit. Basically, it's an insane little film with a shoestring budget.
And that's how I like my movies.
Why yes, that is an impossibly young Jack Nicholson.
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