Our theme for the month of October is “childhood fears.”
A cheesy, camp, horror comedy musical about a plant that eats people and wants to take over the world. That sounds so fun, right? It’s a beloved show, currently running on Broadway right now! The movie has a truly stacked cast of great comedy actors like Rick Moranis, Steve Martin, Jim Belushi, John Candy, and Bill Murray, and even won two Oscars in 1987 when it came out! As much as I love other camp horror musical darling, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it sure as hell didn’t win any awards. This show has done quite well for itself and people adore it! But that doesn’t change the simple fact:
I hate Little Shop of Horrors.
Let me set the scene. The year was 2009. I was in sixth grade and I was talking with some of my eighth grade friends who were discussing the musical the high school was doing. I was a theater kid in that I loved doing theater, but didn’t really know what shows existed, and I was nowhere near getting into horror the way I am now. Hearing the name “Little Shop of Horrors” baffled me a bit. That wasn’t “The Music Man” or “Beauty and the Beast” or any of the other shows I had seen before. I wasn’t sure what it would even sound like.
One of the eighth graders was a proper theater kid who seemingly knew every show and had every soundtrack on her iPod. She gave me the same one sentence overview (a horror comedy musical about a plant that eats people and wants to take over the world) and then kindly lent me an ear bud so I could hear a song from it.
She played “Feed Me, Seymour,” a song where the villain (a giant alien plant) asks the human botanist raising it to kill people for it to eat. In exchange the plant promises wealth, fame, and a date with Hedy Lamarr. I can’t tell what exactly it was about that song that got me. Truth be told, at the time it didn’t. I thought the song was odd but interesting, if kinda gruesome. No, it wasn’t until that night when I was trying to get to sleep that it came back to ruin me. I struggled to get to sleep, fearing that plant was in my closet waiting for me to fall asleep so it could eat me. When I did sleep, I had nightmares where I was in my school running from this plant with its sharp teeth, hungry for my blood. No matter where I ran, vines would find me and pull me back down the halls into its mouth.
This quickly became a problem. For a while I was having more nightmares than not. During the light of day things seemed fine and there were even a few times I thought I was over it! I could listen to the rest of the soundtrack, it’d be great.
Bad idea.
It was a rough time for me. I knew what I was scared of was quite literally impossible but that didn’t make any of it go away. Frankly, I think my parents found my fears ridiculous. I remember getting reprimanded for always opening the shower curtain in the bathroom. I couldn’t use the bathroom at night with it closed. In the dark my brain would convince itself something was behind the curtain and wouldn’t let me be vulnerable if I couldn’t see the whole scape of the room. It was frustrating because I knew the situation was ridiculous, but my fear was real, and if the technique of saying, “It’s not real, you’re fine,” worked, I wouldn’t have been having nightmares. Despite everything, I was still made to go see the musical. My sister was in the chorus, after all! Don’t you want to support your sister? Don’t you love her?
I was just glad when it was all over. There wasn’t a specific moment where I stopped being afraid, it just stopped being top of mind. Life went on and I slowly had more normal nights of sleep than not. Time passed and I grew up! I learned more, saw more, and started appreciating the spooky side of things.
I remember going to a showing of Rocky Horror in 2019, and before the show started the theater played trailers for other spooky movies they were showing for the month. The guy I was with got so excited as the trailer for Little Shop of Horrors began to play. He looked at me, excited, saying “We should go see that one!”
I forced a smile and told him he could go. I would not.
It’s become something of a sore spot now. It’s not often jabbed, but when it is, it’s definitely still raw. I’m not sure if it’s the spite for not being listened to when I was a kid, some residual fear still holding on in me, or some other third thing that I don’t understand, but I still to this day have not seen the movie. I don’t listen to the musical, even though I know most of the songs won’t freak me out and are honestly quite good! I know the show is more camp and comedy than horror, but I simply refuse. I don’t have to watch it if I don’t want to, and I don’t. I don’t want to ever see that damn plant again. Every time it pops up, I think of that scared kid who couldn’t get to sleep and I simply move on.
My sister asked me a few years ago in such a quiet and diplomatic voice if I thought I would ever want to watch it with her some time. She would be with me the whole time and we could make fun of it together and stop it if things got too real. The fact that someone recognized my fear, respected it, and was willing to meet me there for it was so kind. I almost said yes out of the pure love an offer like that even comes from.
What I did say yes to was watching the original black and white Little Shop movie from 1960. It’s not a musical, the effects are wonderfully dated, and there are several insane characters that didn’t make it to the musical version–such as Seymor’s hypochondriac mother, a woman who’s constantly planning funerals, and my favorite favorite guy: a man who eats flowers. He comes into the flower store, he buys flowers, and he eats them. I cannot stress enough how ‘Man Who Eats Flowers’ was so stupid but funny that it helped deflate some of my lingering fears. Any time rancid thoughts of that damn plant started rising up, I thought about the Man, and it would genuinely settle me. I started imagining an alternate story where before any schemes of murder or world domination could rise up, the Man would simply eat the plant. He was removed from the musical because he was just too powerful.
It’s not a movie I plan on putting in my rotation, but I was glad to see it with my sister who made watching it feel safe.
I don’t know if I’ll ever watch the film from the 80’s. If someone asked me to go see the stage show, I would likely say no. I know the fear that I hold from that experience is old and based on situations that could never possibly happen, but that doesn’t make the fear that I felt less real. I might like to watch the movie someday, sure. But I don’t have to. I’m glad people love it. I’m glad it brings people so much joy. I’m also glad to be standing up for my past self and try and make them feel heard, and that matters more to me than any musical or movie in the world.
Sam is unsure what exact words describe them best: Lunatic has been used, Gothic Romantic is apt, and Big ol’ Nerd is reductive but true. Mostly they just like stories in whatever form stories can be found. Sam specializes in Frankenstein, running “The Uncanny Productions” on YouTube, but they also dabble with podcasts, singing, and theatre as well. They have a DVD collection that’s long outgrown its shelf, a coffin they use as a desk, and an unrelenting joy for things that are spooky, ridiculous, or magical.
