3. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
The Happy Ending... Based on the brilliant Off-Broadway musical by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman,
Little Shop of Horrors tells the story of Seymour Krelborn, a lowly flower shop worker living in relative poverty on Skid Row. One day, Seymour realises that he's in possession of an alien plant, Audrey II, who slowly convinces him to murder people so he can feed their him their corpses (I didn't see this'd be an easy plot to digest). Later, it's revealed that there are hundreds of these things trying to take over the world, though Seymour manages to save the day and ends up moving into a lovely suburban home with his one true love, Audrey.
What We Really Needed... The
original ending. You know, the one that was even filmed 'cause it was in the script and that's how things we supposed to go. And that ending would have been sad, yes, given that it involved everybody being eaten by Audrey II and the plants taking over the world, but it's the only ending that works within the confines of the story - the point is that the human race got greedy and brought about their own doom. Sure, ending the movie on a happy note is momentarily pleasing given that this is a musical, but it effectively destroys the message. The fact that Hollywood didn't think we could take an ending like that (an ending which, by the way, they were perfectly fine with on Broadway) is pretty insulting. Finishing
Little Shop on a depressing note
enhances its overall quality... something which nobody seems to have realised at the time.