LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986) THE THEATRICAL CUT: **** THE DIRECTOR’S CUT: ***

Roger Corman’s 1960 The Little Shop of Horrors is a classic in its own right.  It’s probably more famous for the legend surrounding the movie (it was shot in two days) than for what really wound up on screen.  I still have a big place in my heart for it, mostly because it shows what an unhinged maniac Jack Nicholson could be, even at an early age. 

Frank Oz’s 1986 adaptation of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s Off-Broadway remake is a pitch perfect movie.  When I saw it at a young age on the big screen, it made a huge impression on me.  The combination of off-the-wall humor, wild musical numbers, and the scary (but hilarious) man-eating plant Audrey II really got all my eight-year-old horror film fan synapses firing. 

The 1986 version follows the original fairly closely.  Seymour (Rick Moranis) is a lowly flower shop employee who pines for his co-worker Audrey (Ellen Greene).  When the shop is on the verge of closing, Seymour displays his new Venus Fly Trap, Audrey II in the window and people begin to flood the store to get a glimpse at the plant.  Business starts booming, but in order to keep business up, Seymour has to keep Audrey II healthy, which means feeding her fresh blood, and eventually humans. 

It all ended with good conquering evil and Seymour and Audrey running away together and living the life they always dreamed.  However, what Oz and company originally intended was much darker.  In the theatrical version, Seymour is forced to feed his true love Audrey to the plant and is soon eaten himself.  Audrey II’s buds open, revealing more and more man-eating plants that grow huge and eventually take over the world, culminating in a neat moment where Audrey II bursts through the screen. 

It just doesn’t work though.  I mean you spend ninety minutes rooting for Seymour and Audrey to get together only to have her begging to be fed to the plant.  It’s especially hard for Audrey because she’s been continually beaten and abused by her dentist boyfriend (Steve Martin).  When she sings “Somewhere That’s Green” she’s singing for a bright future and the audience really wants her to have that life with Seymour.  In the theatrical cut, it’s a triumphant moment when the couple finally get what they’ve always wanted.  In the director’s cut, Audrey is eaten by Audrey II and “Somewhere That’s Green” turns into a punchline for a bad pun. 

This director’s cut ending might’ve worked on the stage.  I just think it’s a big miscalculation for a movie.  I don’t think Oz and company realized the chemistry Moranis and Greene were going to have.  When they are on screen, they are dynamite together.  I mean, I’m all for a nihilistic ending, but honestly, they are so likeable that you don’t want them to die, let alone see the world engulfed in killer plants.  (If you were making a musical remake of Day of the Triffids, that would be a different story.)  It also doesn’t help that the scenes of the Audrey IIs destroying the city (while impressive looking) goes on too long and gets repetitive in a hurry.   

Luckily, most of the eighty minutes or so that precedes the ending is identical to the theatrical.  Rick Moranis has never been better.  He was rarely given a leading man role and it’s amazing how good he is.  He’s a great singer too as it turns out.  Greene (who originated the role on stage) is wonderful and gives the squeaky-voiced Audrey (who could’ve been a paper-thin character) so much dimension. 

The movie really belongs to the cavalcade of awesome supporting players.  Steve Martin has never been better as the sadistic dentist.  His musical number is one of the best things he’s ever done.  The scene with Bill Murray as his machoistic patient is a textbook example of comic timing.  John Candy is also great as the host of a radio show that showcases weird phenomenon. 

This was a big stepping stone for Oz.  It was the perfect vehicle for him to show what he could do without the support of Jim Henson and the Muppets.  Combining comedy, special effects, puppetry, and guest stars was certainly in his wheelhouse and he did a phenomenal job wrangling all those aspects and bringing them together to make a cohesive and enormously entertaining picture.  

The lyrics by Howard Ashman (who later went on to write the songs for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin) are catchy and funny.  It’s also neat that “Somewhere That’s Green” plays like a dry run for The Little Mermaid’s “Part of Your World”.  The music is great from top to bottom, with the exception of the director’s cut’s final number that plays when Audrey II attacks, which is nowhere near as catchy as the stuff in the theatrical cut. 

Maybe I’m just too attached to the theatrical cut.  I’ve seen it over a dozen times and know a lot of the songs by heart.  I usually hate it when test audiences’ reactions change movies on general principals, but the theatrical cut is a reminder that sometimes, the audience knows better than the filmmakers.

NETFLIX AND KILL: THE HOST (2007) *** ½

A bunch of formaldehyde gets poured down the drain and in a few years’ time, a big scaly monster is running around South Korea eating people.  A food truck worker is devastated when his daughter is carried off by the monster.  Since he came in close contact with the beast, he is taken away by the government and placed in quarantine.  While awaiting examination, he gets a call from his daughter and breaks out of quarantine with his family in order to find her.

Director Joon-ho (Snowpiercer) Bong does a good job at getting the show on the road.  He sketches the characters quickly and the likeable performances ensure that we care about them every step of the way.  I also liked the way he created jump scares through clever editing instead of just throwing a cat into the scene.  

The monster design is pretty rad.  It looks like a cross between The Relic and Godzilla.  I also dug the way it swung itself around using its tail.   

The Host is full of memorable monster-mashing moments and inventive scenes of carnage and survival.  It probably didn’t warrant a two-hour running time though.  It could’ve used a nip and a tuck here and there (the scenes that try to make a commentary on the SARS outbreak don’t quite), but it's definitely a lot of fun, especially when the monster is running amuck. 

AKA:  Monster.

NETFLIX AND KILL: THE VOID (2017) **

A cop finds an injured man in the woods and rushes him to a hospital that’s on the verge of shutting down.  At first, it looks like it’s going to be an ordinary night until nurses start hacking their faces off.  Then a flock of killers in white hoods surround the place to ensure the patients, doctors, and cops inside can’t leave.  Just when they think their situation couldn’t get any worse, they’re attacked by a horde of slimy monsters. 

Directors Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski are obvious students of John Carpenter as there are moments here that echo Halloween 2, Assault on Precinct 13, and The Thing.  (They even use Carpenter font for the end credits.)  There are also scenes that rip-off/borrow from Night of the Living Dead, Hellraiser, and The Beyond.  Horror fans may enjoy picking up on these little sly references to other movies, but unfortunately the stuff the duo came up with on their own never really clicks. 

The monsters are a throwback to the ‘80s.  There’s no CGI here, just honest-to-goodness practical effects.  They are appropriately icky and gooey too.  I just wish the drama that held the monster sequences together were more involving.  The scenes of people arguing with one another before splitting up and slowly tiptoeing down a hospital corridor before happening upon a slimy monster gets a bit repetitive after a while.  The frustrating pacing, thin characters, and predictable ending don’t exactly help matters either. 

NETFLIX AND KILL: THE INVITATION (2016) *

Logan Marshall-Green goes to a party at his ex-wife's house with his new girlfriend in tow.  If that already wasn’t awkward enough, the ex and her new husband tries to indoctrinate them in their newfound hippie religion.  Everyone at the party tries to be nice, but it soon becomes apparent that this hippie-dippy shit is actually a cult.  The hosts show them a recruitment video and even makes them participate in one of their group circles under the guise of a party game.  Eventually the guests have had enough and try to leave, but realize too late that they’re trapped in the house.

Too much of The Invitation feels like you're at a party where you don't know anyone.  There’s more social awkwardness here than out-and-out horror.  It also takes way too long to make its point.  You have to wait about eighty minutes for anything remotely horrific to happen, which is bad enough when you consider the film is already too long at a hundred minutes to begin with. 

Director Karyn (XX) Kusama is going for a slow burn type of deal, but she forgets to turn on the stove.  I don’t mind a slow build-up if you deliver the goods in the third act.  Sadly, the payoff here is painfully weak.  The big revelation is underwhelming and the scenes of the guests going bonkers at the end isn’t worth the wait.  Not by a long shot.

NETFLIX AND KILL: THE BABYSITTER (2017) ** ½

Cole (Judah Lewis) is a nerdy, bullied kid that still has a babysitter (Samara Weaving).  Fortunately for him (and the audience), she’s smoking hot.  Cole wonders exactly what it is the babysitter does after he goes to bed, so he is determined to stay up late and find out.  As it turns out, she likes to bring her friends over to perform a human sacrifice. 

I really wanted to like The Babysitter, but despite a handful of funny moments, the movie often acts like it’s too cool for its own good.  The way the characters endlessly spout out pop culture references (not to mention endless obscenities) grows tiresome, and the on-screen graphics that occasionally pop up to add an exclamation mark on the proceedings gets old fast.  I mean, the whole thing is pretty much taken from Cole’s perspective anyway, so there’s a heightened sense of childhood paranoia already on display.  Having all the title cards popping up is just gratuitous.  (Example:  When Cole witnesses a human sacrifice in his living room, the letters “W…T…F?!?” appear just below his horrified expression.) 

Director McG is deliberately going over the top with the gore and the performances, which is fine.  I even dig the retro-‘80s vibe he’s trying to give off during the death sequences.  I just wish he was a little more disciplined when it came to all the Edgar Wright-inspired graphics. 

Even though the film is tonally a mess, the performances are so good that it really works better than it should.  Lewis makes for a likeable young hero, but it’s Samara Weaving that steals the show as the sexy and deadly babysitter.  No matter what the movie’s faults are, it still has a scene in which she and Bella (Amityville:  The Awakening) Thorne play Truth or Dare and make out with each other.  Because of that, a lot of its sins are easily forgiven. 

Thorne also gets the best line of the movie when she gets shot in the boob and says, “Can’t you just put a tampon in there?” 

NETFLIX AND KILL: DEATH NOTE (2017) **

Nat Wolff stars as a dorky high school kid who finds a magic notebook.  The evil guardian of the book (Willem Dafoe) tells him if you write someone’s name it, they’ll instantly die in the way you described.  At first, he and his girlfriend (Margaret Qualley) try to use it for good by killing criminals under the guise of an avenging angel named Kira.  His detective father (Shea Whigham) is quickly put on the case and joins forces with an unconventional profiler (Lakeith Stanfield) to bring him down. 

Wolff is pretty in the good lead.  I liked the fact that even though he had a book that possessed evil powers, he still screams like a girl whenever he’s in danger.  He has a likeable chemistry with Qualley, who looks a little like a young Eva Green, and they make some of the film’s more tedious sections tolerable just because they are fun to watch.  Willem Dafoe basically plays The Green Goblin again, but dressed up as a porcupine man cosplaying as the Joker.  Whigham has some good moments as Wolff’s father, but Stanfield’s character is annoying.  I’m sure he’s a talented performer in other films; it’s just that his character’s eccentric behavior gets on your nerves almost instantly. 

Death Note was based on a manga, which is probably why it pretty much makes no sense.  I mean, the book just drops out of the sky and Wolff picks it up.  That’s your opening scene!  I guess this was one of those deals where I had to read a comic book prequel or watch an anime short beforehand to figure out what was going on.   

Some of the death scenes have a Final Destination quality about them.  Most of the kills are weak though.  I guess it’s novel that the characters used the book’s power on a global scale instead of just using it to get back at bullies, but the approach is just too clunky and the book's endless list of “rules” gets irritating almost from the get-go.

NETFLIX AND KILL: 1922 (2017) ***

Thomas Jane has a pretty good track record when it comes to Stephen King adaptations.  I happen to think Dreamcatcher is a bug-nuts minor classic and The Mist has one of the best horror movie endings of all time.  I’m happy to report that 1922 is another winner from King and Jane. 

Jane stars as a proud farmer whose wife (Molly Parker) wants to sell off her family’s farmland.  Jane won’t hear of it.  Farming is in his blood and he doesn’t want to give the land up.  Besides, it’s all he knows.  She’s headstrong though and won’t budge.  He soon begins plotting with his son (Dylan Schmid) to bump her off in order to preserve their way of life. 

Screenwriter/director Zak Hilditch does a good job of painting the characters in short, economical strokes.  They are desperate and conniving people driven by greed and the way they lie and corrupt to get what they want evokes the work of Jim Thompson.  Hilditch’s use of dark colors and placement of shadows in the early going is more Film Noir than horror movie.  Farm Noir, if you will. 

The second act is when the horror elements start coming into play.  There’s even a subplot about killer rats that may or may not be a reincarnation of Parker’s vengeful spirit.  The sounds of the rats running, screeching, and scratching behind the walls are quite effective.  Anyone who’s ever had a rodent problem can feel some empathy for Jane’s plight.  (Well, with his rat problem, that is.)   

The Farm Noir first half was a tad more successful for me than the stuff with the killer rats.  Both portions of the film have their moments of quiet eeriness though.  It’s just when I think back to the movie, it’ll be the early scenes of Jane manipulating his son that I’ll remember.  Some of the detours 1922 takes in the second act (like Schmid’s evolution into a ruthless bank robber) are a bit unnecessary too, and it probably runs on a good ten minutes longer than it needed to.   

If anything, 1922 is a reminder of how great Jane can really be.  With his steel-eyed stare and speaking out of clenched teeth with a thick country drawl, he does some of his finest character work of his entire career.  Heck, he even makes you feel a little sympathy for him, which considering what a cold-hearted bastard he is in the movie, isn’t an easy feat.