Everyone remembers the first time they saw that massive, singing Venus fly trap from Little Shop of Horrors. Maybe it was the 1986 Rick Moranis movie with those incredible practical effects, or perhaps you caught a local high school production where the puppet looked more like a painted trash can than a botanical nightmare. Either way, Audrey II is iconic. It’s the plant that turned "Feed me!" into a cultural shorthand for greed, ambition, and the terrifying realization that your houseplants might actually be plotting your demise.
Honestly, the "plant" isn't even a plant. Not really. In the lore of the show, it's an "unusual" specimen that Seymour Krelborn buys from a Chinese flower shop during a total eclipse of the sun. It’s an alien. A "mean green mother from outer space." But because it looks like a Dionaea muscipula on steroids, it has forever linked the real-life botanical world with the bloody antics of Skid Row.
The Practical Magic of the Venus Fly Trap From Little Shop of Horrors
Let’s talk about the 1986 film for a second because it’s a masterclass in puppetry. This was pre-CGI. Everything you see on screen was a physical object. The largest version of the Venus fly trap from Little Shop of Horrors weighed about a ton and required dozens of puppeteers to operate. They had people pulling cables for the lips, others working the vines, and someone inside the "pod" itself.
Frank Oz, the legendary puppeteer and director, had a massive challenge. To make the plant’s lip-syncing look realistic, they actually had to film the scenes at a slower speed. Rick Moranis and the other actors would move and sing in slow motion, and then the film was sped up to normal speed. This made the plant’s movements look snappy and fluid. It’s why Audrey II feels so much more "alive" than the digital monsters we see today. It had weight. It had texture. You could practically smell the swamp water and cheap blood.
Howard Ashman’s Genius and the Faustian Bargain
The story is basically a retelling of Faust. Seymour wants the girl and the fame; the plant wants the meat. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken—the duo who eventually saved Disney with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast—crafted a story where the plant is the ultimate manipulator. It starts small and cute. It needs just a little drop of blood.
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But greed is a slippery slope.
What starts as a few pricked fingers eventually leads to "dissecting" Steve Martin’s sadistic dentist character. The plant grows in direct proportion to Seymour's moral decay. The bigger the plant, the less human Seymour becomes. It’s a brilliant metaphor for how we feed our own monsters until they’re too big to control.
Real Botany vs. The Screen Version
If you’ve ever tried to grow a real Venus fly trap, you know they are incredibly finicky. They don't want Roast Broadway. They don't even want tap water. Real fly traps are native to a very specific part of the Carolinas in the United States. They live in nutrient-poor soil, which is why they evolved to eat bugs—they need the nitrogen.
The Venus fly trap from Little Shop of Horrors turns this on its head. Instead of a delicate plant that dies if you look at it wrong, Audrey II is an invasive predator. It doesn't want flies. It wants the whole damn world.
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Some interesting differences:
- Real fly traps have "trigger hairs." You have to touch them twice within 20 seconds for the trap to shut. Audrey II just snaps whenever it's hungry.
- Digestion in a real plant takes about a week. Audrey II swallows humans whole in seconds.
- Real plants are tiny. The largest traps are barely over an inch long.
The Ending That Was Too Dark for Hollywood
Most people know the "happy" ending of the 1986 movie where Seymour blows up the plant and lives happily ever after with Audrey in the suburbs. But that wasn't the original plan. The original ending—the one from the off-Broadway musical and the one originally filmed by Frank Oz—is much darker.
In that version, the plant wins. It eats Audrey. It eats Seymour. Then, cuttings of the plant are sold all over America. The movie ends with giant Audrey IIs taking over New York City, climbing skyscrapers like King Kong, and eating the audience.
Test audiences hated it. They had spent the whole movie rooting for Seymour, and seeing him get digested was too much of a bummer for the 80s. The studio spent millions to re-shoot the ending we have now. However, you can find the "Director’s Cut" today, and seeing those massive puppets rampaging through the city is a sight to behold. It’s a reminder that the Venus fly trap from Little Shop of Horrors was always meant to be a warning about the bottomless hunger of consumerism.
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Why Audrey II Still Matters in Pop Culture
We see echoes of this plant everywhere. From the Piranha Plants in Super Mario to the various monstrous flora in Stranger Things, the "killer plant" trope owes everything to this specific iteration. It’s the personality that did it. Levi Stubbs, the lead singer of the Four Tops, provided the voice for the 1986 film. He gave the plant a soulful, gritty, and hilarious persona.
It wasn't just a monster; it was a character you almost liked, right up until it started snacking on people.
If you're looking to dive deeper into the world of Audrey II or even try your hand at growing your own (non-human-eating) version, keep these things in mind:
- Watch the 1960 original: It was directed by Roger Corman and allegedly shot in two days. It’s weird, black-and-white, and features a young Jack Nicholson as a dental patient who loves pain.
- Check out the 2012 restoration: This version includes the "lost" dark ending in high definition. The puppetry in the finale is some of the best ever captured on film.
- Respect the real plants: If you buy a Venus fly trap, use distilled water or rainwater only. Tap water contains minerals that will kill them. And please, don't feed them hamburger meat. It'll rot the trap.
The Venus fly trap from Little Shop of Horrors remains the gold standard for movie monsters because it represents something universal. We all have that one thing we’re "feeding"—a job, a habit, an ambition—that feels like it’s getting a little out of hand. Sometimes, you have to stop feeding the plant before it decides you're the next meal.