Drected by Roger Corman, written by Charles B. Griffith and made under the name The Passionate People Eater, this movie was made in two days for $28,000 on the same sets as A Bucket of Blood. Playing double features with Black Sunday and Last Woman On Earth, it became a cult film and that continued once it aired repeatedly on TV.

Gravis Mushnick (Mel Welles) and his two employees, Audrey Fulquard (Jackie Joseph) and Seymour Krelboined (Jonathan Haze), run a flower shop that seen better days. When Seymour screws up an order for dentist Dr. Phoebus Farb (John Shaner), he’s fired until he shows his new plant, which he claims he grew from a seed that he was given by a Japanese gardener over on Central Avenue. He names it Audrey 2 and before you know it, it lives on human blood and then people. Yet it brings people into the store and becomes famous. Gravis calls Seymour son now.

Of course, Gravis eventually sees Seymour feeding a dead homeless man — it was an accident, but still — to Audrey 2 and then Dr. Farb, who he killed in self defense. But the crimes are getting worst and the police — named Fink and Stoolie — and the Society of Silent Flower Observers of Southern California wants to give Seymour an award. All he wants is the original Audrey, but the plant hypnotizes him and makes him continue bringing him food.

The movie was actually written at a coffee house. Corman said, “We ended up at a place where Sally Kellerman (before she became a star) was working as a waitress, and as Chuck and I vied with each other, trying to top each other’s sardonic or subversive ideas, appealing to Sally as a referee, she sat down at the table with us, and the three of us worked out the rest of the story together.”

This is also an early Jack Nicholson movie — the actor said that “I went in to the shoot knowing I had to be very quirky because Roger originally hadn’t wanted me. In other words, I couldn’t play it straight. So I just did a lot of weird shit that I thought would make it funny.” — and as you know, went on to become even bigger when it was made into a musical and remade in 1986. There was even a cartoon, Little Shop, that was on Fox Kids and had Corman as a consultant. As for this one, Corman was so sure it wouldn’t do well that he never got a copyright and let it go into public domain.

Dick Miller really did eat that flower.

You can watch this on Tubi.