Movie Night: The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Feed me, Minerva Room! Our October public domain horror series continues with a movie featuring murder, mayhem and one very hungry houseplant during this special midday screening! What’s “public domain,” you ask? These are works that have slipped free from copyright’s grip, meaning they belong to everyone. For scholars and students, public domain materials are treasures: they can be studied, remixed, taught, and shared without restriction. For horror fans? They’re a free-for-all of ghosts, monsters and ghoulish delights we can screen without summoning a copyright lawyer. This Week’s Fright: The Little Shop of Horrors (1960). Long before Audrey II was belting out show tunes on Broadway, Roger Corman gave us this delightfully strange little horror-comedy about Seymour Krelborn, a bumbling flower shop assistant who accidentally creates a plant with a rather unusual appetite. Seymour’s discovery might finally bring him fame, fortune and the attention of his coworker Audrey—but keeping his rapidly growing botanical creation happy requires increasingly questionable gardening choices. Come for the carnivorous plant, stay for the dark comedy, low-budget charm and a very young Jack Nicholson in one of his earliest film roles. Rated: Unrated (campy horror, comic violence & a people-eating plant) Runtime: 1 hour & 12 minutes. As always, we’ll provide the hot, fresh popcorn—just don’t feed any of it to the plants. Grab your friends and join us in the Minerva Room for a cult classic where horticulture goes horribly, horribly wrong. Registration is not required, but preferred. Hosted by: University Libraries