The Little Shop Of Horrors Alternate Ending You Never Got To Watch

Like a handful of film adaptations, the movie version of Little Shop of Horrors took the liberty of changing a few things from the original Broadway musical. One of these differences involves the ending, which wraps up the entire story in a nice and somewhat happy bow. The ending that film audiences saw involved Audrey (Ellen Greene) and Seymour (Rick Moranis) narrowly escaping the clutches of the bloodthirsty terrifying plant, Audrey II.

After they're safe from harm, Seymour decides that the time has come to eliminate Audrey II for good. When Seymour returns for his final confrontation with the plant, Audrey II manages to trap him inside the shop. In a last-ditch effort, Seymour electrocutes Audrey II, causing the shop to explode. However, Seymour comes out relatively unscathed and reunites with Audrey. The two get married and live happily ever after — except the camera pans over to a small Audrey II bud in their front yard.

This ending couldn't be any more different from the musical version. In fact, Frank Oz, the director of the movie, had actually filmed a darker ending that better echoed the musical, but it was scrapped. Depending on your taste, you might find Oz's intended version to be one of the many alternate movie endings that are better than the original. 

In the alternate ending for Little Shop of Horrors, Audrey joins her abusive boyfriend Orin and the shop's owner Mr. Mushnik in falling victim to Audrey II. With his love now gone, Seymour tries to throw himself off the shop's roof but is stopped by Patrick Martin, a marketing executive who wants to sell tiny versions of Audrey II. Seymour suddenly realizes that Audrey II's goal is world domination, and Martin has no plans of halting the sale of the creature. This prompts Seymour to try and kill Audrey II, but he, too, is eaten by the plant.

After his failed attempt, the three chorus girls who've been narrating the story return to offer an epilogue. The film shows clips of Audrey II's buds selling internationally and eventually taking over the world. The plants are then shown destroying structures and devouring countless numbers of humans. In the end, Audrey II busts through the screen and chomps away at the audience.

This ending was originally set to be in the film's theatrical release, but during an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2012, Oz explained that he was pressured to film the alternate ending after the movie's test screening didn't do too well with audiences. "For every musical number there was applause, they loved it," he said. "It was just fantastic... until we killed our two leads. And then the theater became a refrigerator, an ice box. It was awful and the cards were just awful. They were saying that they hated us killing them."

Oz had no choice but to come up with the theatrical ending. Although it wound up as little more than a costly deleted scene, Little Shop of Horrors' long-lost original ending did see a black-and-white revival in the 1998 DVD release of the film. Eventually, though, the Blu-ray edition of Little Shop of Horrors had the scene fully restored in 2012.