The Little Shop of Horrors

The Little Shop of Horrors began as a 1960 American comedy horror film directed and produced by Roger Corman from a screenplay by Charles B. Griffith. The story is a farce about a florist's assistant who cultivates a plant that feeds on human blood, and it stars Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles and Dick Miller, all of whom had worked for Corman before. The film was made on a budget of about $28,000, with its interiors shot in two days on sets left standing from A Bucket of Blood, and it mixes dark comedy, farce, spoof and Jewish humor. Released in 1960 by Filmgroup as half of a double feature, it gained a cult following by word of mouth and through local television broadcasts. It then became the basis for an Off-Broadway musical, which was adapted into a 1986 feature film and reached Broadway in 2003 and a New York revival in 2019, so the property now spans film and stage.