Roger Corman

The narrator (Stanley Jones) tells of an event that once threatened the existence of the entire human race. It occurred in "the most seemingly innocent and unlikely of places", Skid Row, in New York. Three teenage girls (Michelle Weeks, Tisha Campbell-Martin, and Tichina Arnold) appear throughout the film as a Motown-singing Greek chorus. They set the scene at the unassuming Mushnick's Flower Shop ("Little Shop of Horrors"). Seymour Krelborn (Rick Moranis), the meek, clumsy employee of Mr. Mushnick (Vincent Gardenia), lives a dreary life among the other unfortunate residents of Skid Row ("Skid Row/Downtown"). Taken in by Mushnick as a young orphan, Seymour lives in a tiny room below the flower shop and is treated fairly poorly by his employer. The light of his life is his co-worker, Audrey (Ellen Greene), a fragile, battered woman stuck in an abusive relationship. The flower shop is making virtually no money, and Mr. Mushnick is on the verge of closing it for good when Audrey mentions the strange and interesting new plant Seymour has been developing, and suggests that if it is properly advertised, it might attract more business. Seymour presents the plant, a large bud surrounded by layers of leaves. Mushnick is pleasantly surprised when customers begin flocking in after seeing the little plant in the window. Seymour has no idea what kind of plant it is, but explains how he got it ("Da Doo"): While he was shopping for odd new plants, his hobby, a solar eclipse occurred. After daylight returned, the strange plant seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Seymour bought it for cheap and brought it home to examine. He shyly admits that he named it "Audrey II." The shop is doing record business until the plant begins to wither. Seymour frantically tries to nurse it back to health, though water, sunlight, fertilizer, and minerals have done no good ("Grow For Me"). When he pricks his finger on a rose thorn and draws blood, Audrey II responds vigorously. Seymour realizes what it lives on, and reluctantly gives it a few drops. Audrey II has a dramatic growth spurt and business picks up, with Seymour becoming a local celebrity ("Some Fun Now"). He does not reveal the secret behind the plant's health. Audrey's boyfriend, Orin Scrivello (Steve Martin), is a sadistic dentist with a leather jacket, motorcycle, and ducktail haircut. He adores his profession because of the constant opportunities to inflict pain on others ("Dentist!"). He enhances his pleasure through his habit of huffing nitrous oxide, or "giggle gas", for a euphoric high. Seymour and Mushnick are concerned, as Audrey often comes to work with injuries or a black eye. Orin arrives at the shop one night to pick up Audrey, and Seymour sees first hand how roughly he treats her. Audrey, meanwhile, secretly dreams of an idyllic suburban life with Seymour ("Somewhere That's Green"), but is too frightened to leave Orin. Seymour angrily paces around the empty shop at night, venting his frustrations to Audrey II, who is now roughly the size of an armchair. To Seymour's great surprise, Audrey II responds with a human voice (Levi Stubbs) and demands more food. Knowing that the plant can no longer live on mere droplets of blood (partially because it is too big, and partially because Seymour is now weak and anemic from feeding the plant from his bleeding fingers), Seymour is reluctant to provide it with bigger portions. The smooth-talking Audrey II promises Seymour money, fame, and the girl of his dreams if he continues to nourish it with human blood ("Feed Me (Git It)"). Seymour initially refuses to murder for the benefit of Audrey II, reasoning that he doesn't know anyone "who deserves to get chopped up and fed to a hungry plant." Audrey II directs him to the window, where he sees Orin assaulting Audrey across the street. Filled with rage, Seymour agrees to bring back a specific meal for the plant. The next day, Seymour goes to Orin's office with a gun in his coat pocket. The patient before him, Arthur Denton (Bill Murray) is a gleeful masochist who frustrates Orin by actually enjoying the oral torture he receives. After Denton's departure, Orin drags Seymour into his office to get the sadistic fix he had been craving. Though he wants to spare Audrey further pain and has promised Audrey II fresh blood, Seymour is terrified of shooting Orin. Conveniently, Orin dons his special gas mask, which provides him with constant nitrous oxide and increases his sadistic pleasure. The mask malfunctions and Seymour watches his nemesis asphyxiate before his eyes. Seymour drags the body back to the flower shop, where he reluctantly chops it up with an axe and feeds it piece by piece to Audrey II. Seymour is understandably shaken by the incident, and sees the police speaking with Audrey the next morning about Orin's disappearance. He tries to comfort Audrey, telling her that she had deserved a better man all along. While Audrey admits that her low self-esteem kept her tied to Orin, she feels partially responsible for his fate because she had been silently wishing him out of her life. Though he does not reveal the truth about what became of Orin, Seymour promises to stand by Audrey no matter what ("Suddenly Seymour"). Invigorated from finally winning Audrey's love, Seymour returns to the flower shop. He is confronted by Mushnick, who had seen Seymour dismembering Orin's body the night before. Mushnick assumes that Seymour's devotion to Audrey caused him to murder the cruel dentist, but does not suspect that Audrey II is involved, and knows nothing of its grisly diet. Mushnick leads Seymour upstairs at gunpoint, planning to turn him in to the police. He then offers Seymour a proposition: Seymour leaves town forever, and Mushnick keeps the money-making plant. As Audrey II coaxes Seymour to sacrifice Mushnick to clear his own name ("Suppertime"), Seymour nervously backs Mushnick into the gaping maw of the hungry plant, killing two birds with one stone. With Audrey II grown to enormous proportions, Seymour's celebrity increases ("The Meek Shall Inherit"). However, he is miserable and terrified of the plant's eating habits getting out of hand. He begins to fend off the media and turn down large sums of money, feeling guilty for his part in the secret deaths of Audrey II's meals. He finally puts his foot down, denying the plant any further feedings. He and Audrey plan to run away that night and get married, escaping Skid Row forever. However, he buckles when Audrey II seemingly agrees to accept some meat from the butcher instead of a human corpse. Seymour falls for the ruse and leaves the shop. The plant, with its fully mobile tendrils, uses the phone to call Audrey's apartment across the street, begging for water. Audrey, in her wedding dress, comes to oblige, and is amazed that the huge plant can talk. As she fetches the watering can, the plant wraps its vines around her legs and drags her into its mouth ("Suppertime II"). Seymour returns just in time to save Audrey from being devoured. Outside the shop, he explains how dangerous the plant is, and how he only kept it because he thought Audrey would cease to like him if he were no longer rich and famous. Audrey assures Seymour that she loved him from the moment she met him, and still does. They are interrupted by a salesman (James Belushi) who shares with Seymour his idea of collecting trimmings from the plant and marketing miniature Audrey IIs all over the country. Seymour deducts that this was the plant's plan all along: It was an alien that came to earth during the solar eclipse and was bent on world domination. He rushes back into the shop for a final showdown with Audrey II. The plant thwarts Seymour's efforts at killing it, and begins to taunt him as its branches destroy the building and new buds begin to bloom ("Mean Green Mother from Outer Space"). Emerging from the rubble, Seymour grabs a live electric wire and touches it to Audrey II's vine, electrocuting it and causing it to explode into nothing. Seymour and Audrey are married and arrive at their suburban dream home, just as Audrey had imagined. As they enter the front door, a baby Audrey II plant is seen in their garden, a tiny smile on its pod.

During the Great Depression, a union leader and a young woman become criminals to exact revenge on the management of a railroad. Based on "Sister of the Road," the fictionalized autobiography of radical and transient Bertha Thompson as written by physician Dr. Ben L. Reitman, 'Boxcar' Bertha Thompson, a woman labor organizer in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early '30's meets up with rabble-rousing union man 'Big' Bill Shelly and they team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment and she is eventually sucked into a life of crime with him. —alfiehitchie In the 1930's American south, Bertha Thompson decides to live the life of a transient after her crop duster father dies in a crash leaving her alone in the world. She grows up quickly from the experiences she has with various people she meets while riding the rails. Ultimately, she ends up traveling with three others: "Big" Bill Shelly, a laborer who now speaks on behalf of workers' rights and unions; Rake Brown, a gambler not averse to cheating and who carries a gun but is too scared to ever use it; and Von Morton, a harmonica playing black man who worked as her father's mechanic. Despite their different motivations in life, the four become fiercely loyal to each other, especially Bertha and Bill, both who consider the other to be the love of their life. Besides Rake's need to cheat to make a living, none of the four is predisposed to criminal behavior, but they end up living a life of crime out of circumstance, which included a card game gone wrong. Bill in particular feels uncomfortable with the criminal behavior in and of itself, except for the good he can do for the working class in the crimes. Even before their overtly criminal activities, they riled the police, who harassed them for riding the rails and for Bill's "Bolshevik" talk. But they also rile a railway owner named Sartoris and the sadistic McIver brothers, who work as henchmen for both the authorities and Sartoris, as Bill's pro-union/pro-striking diatribes are generally against the railroad. Hence, the battle between Sartoris/the McIvers and the foursome becomes a personal one on both sides. —Huggo During the Great Depression, Bertha Thompson begins riding the rails and has a series of adventures, some lighthearted and others deadly serious. She gets involved with a less than honest gambler, Rake Brown, having to shoot her way out of a game when Rake is caught cheating. She also has a stint working in a bordello. She regularly crosses paths with union organizer Big Bill Shelley who is out to get a fair shake, by legal means or otherwise, for railway workers. They become lovers and take to robbing the payroll and when necessary, Bertha even breaks him out of jail. The railroad has its own enforcers however and Bill doesn't meet a just end however. —garykmcd

Master criminals join a British major on a suicide mission in 1943 Yugoslavia. The Nazis imprison an Italian general who was planning to switch sides and turn over his army to the Allied side. Allied headquarters sends a small, somewhat misfit group of soldiers to spring the general from prison and carry out his plans. —frankfob2@yahoo.com

A man's obsession with his dead wife drives a wedge between him and his new bride. Some years after having buried his beloved wife Ligea, Verden Fell meets and eventually marries the lovely Lady Rowena. Fell is something of a recluse, living in a small part of a now ruined Abbey with his manservant Kenrick as the only other occupant. He remains infatuated with his late wife and is convinced that she will return to him. While all goes well when first married, he returns to his odd behavior when they return to the Abbey from their honeymoon. The memories of Ligea continue to haunt him as well as her promise that she would never die. —garykmcd Erudite recluse Verden Fell is truck by a meeting with lady Rowena, daughter of country lord Trevanion, who reminds him of his late wife, Ligeia, both being somehow associated with a black cat and the wild fox the lord loves hunting. They fall in love, marry and resolve he leave the ruined abbey where he buried Ligeia. However Rowena's devoted gentleman friend Christopher Gough discovers it cannot be sold as Ligeia was never declared legally dead, making Rowena's marriage involuntarily bigamous. After a hypnotic session shows Ligeia possesses Rowena, strange things keep happening. Verden relapses in gloom and seclusion, but Christopher gets his loyal old manservant Kenrick to assist in an exhumation. In the abbey, things turn to a spectacular, dramatical conclusion for all concerned, yet not quite. —KGF Vissers A nobleman always dresses in black and is obsessed with his dead wife. He believes his new wife has been possessed by his dead wife's evil spirit. —frankfob2@yahoo.com

Ray Milland plays Dr. James Xavier a brilliant scientist who understands that the human eye only perceives a tenth of the entire visual spectrum. Through his experiments he develops an eye drop that allows a monkey to see through hard material and his gal-pal Dr. Diane Fairfax (Diana Van der Vlis) is astounded at the discovery. Xavier turns to his friend Dr. Sam Brant (Harold J. Stone) to aid him in administering the drug on himself to record the details first hand, but Brant doesnt want to because too much is still unknown about the drug. Xavier goes forward with his plans and discovers a wealth of new visual abilities he didnt posses before. His ability to see through material prevents a miss-diagnosed surgery but puts him at odds with the attending physician at his hospital. Brant tries to prevent Xavier from continuing the drug because of the physical damage to his system. In the midst of an argument Xavier accidentally causes the death of Brant and Diane convinces Xavier to flee until he can pull himself together and explain what happened. Xavier drops out of sight until Diane tracks him down and discovers that by continually using the vision drug Xavier has developed a sensitivity that has caused shocking changes in the doctors persona. As the police close in and crosses paths with a religious preacher the doctor takes some actions that have drastic aftereffects.

Ax murders follow a heart attack at an Irish castle full of mourners. While out on a rowboat with his wife Louise, John Haloran has a heart attack and dies. She casts his body overboard and hides his death, telling the family he left on an urgent business trip. Louise's main concern is that she can only hope to inherit part of his family fortune if he's still alive. The Halorans are a strange family. They are still grieving over the death of the youngest daughter Kathleen, who drowned in a pond when she was very young. The family holds an annual ceremony of remembrance on the anniversary of her death. But this year someone is wielding an ax...intent on murder. —garykmcd The anniversary of Kathleen Haloran's death is approaching; she drowned in the pond on the family's estate. Since then, her mother has had a maniacal obsession with Kathleen's memory, and deeded the estate to a charity in Kathleen's name. This doesn't sit well with greedy Louise Haloran, who believes that her mother-in-law is crazy. On the eve of the ceremony, Louise's husband John dies from a heart attack in front of Louise, who hides his death from the family as she tries to work herself and John back into the will through an elaborate scheme involving Lady Haloran's obsession with Kathleen. —Huggo Shocked by the sudden death of her spouse, young widow Louise Haloran--knowing that she will be excluded from the inheritance--hatches a daring plan to get her hands on her share. As a result, after carefully disposing of the body, the scheming woman pays a visit to her late husband's ancestral home in Ireland, the Castle Haloran, pretending that he is away on business. However, unbeknownst to Louise, a blood-thirsty ax-wielding murderer who lurks in the dark corners of the vast family estate has already set his sights on killing her at any cost. Indeed, there's an invisible killer in their midst. What mystery shrouds Lady Haloran's noble house? —Nick Riganas John Haloran has a fatal heart attack, and his wife Louise will be excluded from inheritance if John dies while his mother, Lady Haloran, is still alive. Louise plans to convince the rest of his family that he has been called to New York on important business; then she will journey to his Irish ancestral home, Castle Haloran, to meet the family and look for a way to ensure a cut of the loot. —Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com>

A magician, who has been turned into a raven, turns to a former sorcerer for help. In this tongue-in-cheek movie inspired by Poe's poem, Dr. Craven is the son of a great sorcerer (now dead) who was once himself quite skilled at that profession, but has since abandoned it. One evening, a cowardly fool of a magician named Bedlo comes to Craven for help - the evil Scarabus has turned him into a raven and he needs someone to change him back. He also tells the reluctant wizard that Craven's long-lost wife Lenore, whom he loved greatly and thought dead, is living with the despised Scarabus. —Ken Yousten <kyousten@bev.net> The magician Dr. Erasmus Craven, who does not belong to the brotherhood of magicians, grieves the loss of his beloved wife Lenore and lives in a castle with his daughter Estelle. One day, a raven knocks on his window and Dr. Craven learns that the bird is actually the magician Dr. Adolphus Bedlo that was turned into a raven after challenging the powerful magician Dr. Scarabus that was an enemy of his father. Dr. Craven makes a potion to turn Dr. Bedlo back to the human form and Dr. Bedlo tells that he has seen Lenore in the castle of Dr. Scarabus. Dr. Craven decides to go in his coach with Dr. Bedlo to visit Dr. Scarabus, and Estella and Dr. Bedlo's son, Rexford, decide to go with them. They find an amicable Dr. Scarabus who invites them to stay for the night. Was Dr. Craven's father wrong about Dr. Scarabus? —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Three tales of terror involve a grieving widower and the daughter he abandoned; a drunkard and his wife's black cat; and a hypnotist who prolongs the moment of a man's death. Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe. A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences. —David Carroll <davidc@atom.ansto.gov.au> "Tales of Terror" presents three adaptations of good stories by Edgar Allan Poe directed by Roger Corman. (1) "Morella": The twenty and something years old Lenora returns to the derelict house of her estranged father Locke. Her mother Morella died after giving birth to Lenora and Locke still grieves and blames Lenora for the death of his beloved wife. Lenora finds the corpse of Morella on her bed and Locke tells that he could not leave her in a coffin six feet under. Locke tries to make amends for abandoning Lenora but something supernatural happens. (2) "The Black Cat": The drunkard Montresor is an abusive man that spends the money that his wife Annabel earns working drinking wine in a tavern. He also mistreats her black cat. One day, Montresor meets the connoisseur of fine wines Fortunato Luchresi and he disputes his knowledge with him. Fortunato brings Montresor home and woos Annabel. When Montresor discovers that his wife is having a love affair with Fortunato, he plots an evil scheme to seek revenge. (3) "The Case of M. Valdemar": The wealthy Ernest Valdemar is terminal feeling great pain. He hires the hypnotizer Carmichael to relief his pain and asks his beloved wife Helene and his Dr. James to get married to each other after his death. However Carmichael controls his mind and Valdemar dies but his soul stays trapped in his body. Carmichael tells Helene that he let Valdemar go only if she marries him but his attitude brings tragic consequences. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Based on Edgar Allan Poe's story about a cataleptic Englishman obsessed with the fear of being buried alive. Emily Gault arrives at the Carrell mansion determined to rekindle an old relationship with Guy Carrell, despite the disapproval of his sister, Kate. Guy overcomes his all-consuming fear of being buried alive long enough to marry Emily but soon becomes obsessed again, building a crypt designed to guarantee that he will not fall prey to his most dreaded nightmare. Trying to prove that he has been cured of his phobia, he opens his father's tomb and is shocked into a catatonic state. His worst fears are realized as he is lowered into a grave and covered over, apparently never to learn that the treachery of someone very dear to him was directly responsible for his predicament. —Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net> The wealthy cataleptic painter Guy Carrell believes that he overheard his father, who also had catalepsy, crying in the crypt of his family when he was a kid and is obsessed by the fear of being buried alive. He leaves his fiancée Emily Gault and lives alone with his sister Kate Carrell in the family manor. However Emily seeks him out and convinces Guy to marry her, despite the disapproval of Kate, promising that she would never bury him without the certainty of his death by her friend, Dr. Miles Archer, and her father Dr. Gideon Gault. After the wedding, Guy does not travel in honeymoon to Venice, as he had promised to Emily, and builds a crypt with safety devices to avoid that he is trapped alive inside. However Emily and Miles convince him to demolish the building. Guy has nightmares and visions with the gravediggers and weird events happen in the mansion. He decides to prove that is cured of his fear and opens his father grave, but someone has moved his skeleton and Guy is diagnosed of heart attack. However he is catatonic indeed and is buried alive as he has always feared. Will be the end of Guy? Who might have caused the shock on Guy? —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor. Francis Barnard goes to Spain, when he hears his sister Elizabeth has died. Her husband Nicholas Medina, the son of the brutest torturer of the Spanish Inquisition, tells him she has died of a blood disease, but Francis finds this hard to believe. After some investigating he finds out that it was extreme fear that was fatal to his sister and that she may have been buried alive! Strange things then start to happen in the Medina castle. —Leon Wolters <wolters@strw.LeidenUniv.nl> After the mysterious death of Elizabeth Barnard Medina, her brother Francis Barnard travels from London to Spain and without previous notice he arrives at the castle of her husband Nicholas Medina. He is received by Nicholas' sister Catherine Medina that invites Francis to have dinner with her brother and her. Francis learns that their father Sebastian Medina was a cruel torturer of the Spanish Inquisition and Nicholas is a traumatized man that has witnessed the murder of his uncle Bartolome and his mother adulterer Isabella being tortured and killed by his father when he was a kid. During the dinner, the family's friend Doctor Charles Leon unexpectedly arrives and Francis discovers that his sister died of heart attack after visiting the torture chamber in the dungeons. Soon the place is haunted by strange events and Nicholas suspects of his servants Maximillian and Maria but Francis is convinced that Nicholas is the responsible for the death of his sister. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Francis Barnard visits the castle of Nicholas Medina, his late sister's husband, to pay his respects and find out how she died. The castle was used to torture victims during the Spanish Inquisition and that feeling of terror remains within parts of the castle. It appears that the spirit of his sister is haunting the castle. —grantss When his sister Elizabeth dies suddenly, Francis Barnard visits his brother-in-law Don Medina to find out exactly what happened to her. Don Medina lives a lonely life since his wife's death. He loved her dearly and can't explain what she died of. Francis clearly isn't welcome and it is only Don Medina's sister Catherine that seems to have an interest him. As Francis and Catherine explore the events surrounding Elizabeth's death, Francis learns of Don Medina's horrific childhood experiences and discover an attempt to drive him mad. —garykmcd

Two brothers, one wanted for murder, are shipwrecked on an island inhabited by nubile young women who have amassed a valuable cache of pearls. Two men escaping the police by ship are blown off course by a typhoon and shipwrecked on an uncharted island populated by women who make a living diving for pearls. What the men don't know is that the women are also part of a shark cult that sacrifices young virgins to the sharks in the surrounding ocean in order to appease the shark gods. —frankfob2@yahoo.com Chris Johnson helps his brother Jim, who is a fugitive on a murder charge, to escape from the law on his boat. They are shipwrecked on a reef near a supposed uninhabited island but are pulled from the shark-filled waters by Mahia, one of a group of sarong-clad, nubile beauties living there. Their leader, Queen Pua, tells them that they will have to wait for a company supply boat to take them away. After Chris saves Mahia from being sacrificed to the shark-gods by Queen Pua and Jim steals the Queen's cache of pearls, the men try to make good their escape with a stolen canoe. —Gabe Taverney (duke1029@aol.com)