Little Shop of Horrors (musical)

Little Shop of Horrors is a stage musical written by Howard Ashman with music by Alan Menken, based on the 1960 film, The Little Shop of Horrors directed by Roger Corman. The plot concerns a young man named Seymour who raises a plant that needs human blood to survive. As the plant (named Audrey II by Seymour, after his love-interest) grows, it requires more blood than Seymour can provide, and so it starts to demand to be fed humans whole.

The musical contains four instances of vore:


 * Orin, the abusive boyfriend of Seymour's love-interest, Audrey, is the first to be eaten by the plant. Audrey II manipulates Seymour into feeding Orin to it, using his abusive nature as justification.
 * Mr. Mushnik, Seymour's employer, works out that Seymour was responsible for the death of Orin. Seymour tricks Mushnik into thinking he has put the day's receipts inside the plant for safekeeping. Mr. Mushnik is eaten when he goes to retrieve them.
 * Later on in the second act, Audrey goes to visit Seymour in the flower shop while he isn't there. Alone with the plant, Audrey II asks her to give it some water. When she gets close to its vines, they wrap around her and pull her into its mouth. Seymour arrives in time to see what is happening and pull Audrey out of its mouth, but she has been fatally wounded and dies of blood loss. Seymour honours her dying wish for her body to be fed to the plant so she can be with him forever.
 * Seymour, having worked out Audrey II's plan is to reproduce across the globe and achieve world domination, tries to kill the plant before it can eat any more people. Seymour runs into the plant's mouth with a machete with the intention of killing it from the inside, but he is eaten instead.

Film adaptation
The musical was adapted into a feature film in 1986, directed by Frank Oz (of Muppets fame.) The film was originally shot following the plot of the stage musical, however test audiences complained that the ending was too depressing. An alternate ending was therefore filmed and included in the theatrical cut in which Audrey and Seymour both survive and Audrey II is destroyed by electrocution. Footage of the original intended ending has since been made public and is included on this article.