15 Sci-Fi Movie Endings That Would Have Changed Everything

9. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

Little Shop of Horrors rivals Rocky Horror as the offbeat musical of the late twentieth century, with the same brand of camp and deadly carrying a rickety cast of characters and unusual tunes into the culture. And who better to direct it than The Muppets’ Frank Oz, complete with the puppeteering and animatronic technology that made his name.

Rick Moranis plays Seymour Krelborn, a good-hearted fella working at a flower shop on skid row. Seymour wants nothing more than to catch the eye of his co-worker Audrey (Ellen Greene), and how better to get her – and the city’s – attention than with the unusual predatory plant (“Audrey II”, voiced by Levi Stubbs), which he bought in Chinatown during an eclipse.

The plant grows, the tunes flow and the creature’s thirst for blood leads the shop and its workers down a dark path. Much of this grisly content is carried across from the stage musical, but test screening audiences (again!) couldn’t handle the original ending. As per the musical, Seymour and Audrey are eaten by Audrey II, the plant spawns many children, they grow to an enormous size, and take over the world. Epic, but not what the first line of viewers wanted to see.

As a result, Oz replaced this ending, instead having Seymour kill the plant, wed Audrey and move to the suburbs, where, a sprouting remnant of Audrey II lurks in their garden… Well, it ain't called the American Dream for nothing.