shop (2020): Ending Explained

Quick Recap

In the shadowy underbelly of Skid Row, where the air hangs heavy with despair and the distant rumble of trains echoes like a perpetual sigh, we meet Seymour Krelborn, a meek orphan toiling away in Mushnik's rundown flower shop alongside his coworker and secret crush, Audrey Fulquard. The neighborhood pulses with a gritty hopelessness, its denizens trapped in a cycle of poverty and unfulfilled dreams, as captured in the soulful lament of the Greek chorus—Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon—who set the foreboding tone from the start. Business is bleak, the shop on the brink of closure, until Seymour unveils his peculiar new acquisition: a strange, pulsating plant he names Audrey II, bought under the eerie veil of a solar eclipse from a mysterious Chinese florist.

As the plant begins to wither, Seymour pricks his finger in a moment of accidental revelation, discovering its thirst for human blood. The once-drooping leaves perk up with a sinister vitality, drawing crowds and turning the shop into a sensation. Seymour's fame swells on the radio waves, but so does his exhaustion, his veins a reluctant lifeline to the growing monstrosity. Meanwhile, Audrey endures the brutal grip of her sadistic dentist boyfriend, Orin Scrivello, a leather-clad menace whose sadism seeps into every tense encounter, contrasting sharply with Audrey's wistful fantasies of suburban escape with Seymour. The plant's demands escalate, whispering temptations in Seymour's ear, blurring the line between nurture and nightmare as blood-soaked soil darkens the shop's already dim corners.

What Happens in the Ending

The climax unfolds in a frenzy of shadows and screams, the flower shop transformed into a claustrophobic chamber of horror under the flickering neon glow from Skid Row's streets. After Seymour, driven by a mix of desperation and dark ambition, lures Orin to his demise—tricking the sadistic dentist into a nitrous oxide-fueled trap in his own office—the plant devours Orin with grotesque relish, its jagged maw snapping shut amid a spray of crimson that stains the air with a metallic tang. Mr. Mushnik, suspecting foul play after glimpsing the bloodied evidence, confronts Seymour in the dead of night, only to meet a similar fate: Seymour, his face twisted in reluctant resolve, pushes the gruff shop owner into Audrey II's waiting tendrils, the plant's vines coiling like cold fingers around Mushnik's thrashing form as digestive gurgles echo through the room.

But the true gut-wrench of the ending hits when Audrey, weakened by Orin's abuse and now succumbing to a mysterious illness, lies pale and fading on her deathbed. In a haze of morphine-dulled pain, she begs Seymour to end her suffering by feeding her to the plant, believing it offers a twisted mercy—a final bloom in the jaws of the beast she helped nurture. Heartbroken, Seymour complies in the theatrical cut, but as the plant swells to monstrous proportions, its pods sprouting across the city like invasive weeds under a stormy sky, Seymour rallies with a surge of defiance. Armed with a machete and sheer willpower, he hacks at the behemoth in a visceral symphony of slicing tendrils and oozing sap, the air thick with the acrid scent of severed greenery and gunpowder from a final explosive flourish. The plant's demise comes in a fiery inferno, its screams—voiced in Levi Stubbs' gravelly roar—fading into silence as Seymour and a revived Audrey embrace amid the smoldering ruins, escaping to their dreamed-of suburbs. Yet, in the original 23-minute director's cut, restored in 2012, the tone darkens irrevocably: Seymour's act seals humanity's doom, with Audrey II's offspring invading the world, newscasters reporting alien invasions as the screen fades to black under a canopy of carnivorous leaves.

The Meaning Behind the Ending

The ending pulses with a psychological undercurrent of temptation and consequence, the plant serving as a visceral metaphor for unchecked desire—the bloodlust of ambition that starts as a drop on parched soil but floods into a devouring torrent. In the theatrical version, Seymour's final stand against Audrey II symbolizes redemption through sacrifice, the flames consuming not just the monster but the shadows of Seymour's moral descent, purging the shop's stale air of guilt and leaving a fragile hope in its wake. It's a cathartic release, the tension of Skid Row's oppressive gloom lifting like fog after rain, underscoring themes of love's redemptive power amid horror's grip.

Yet, the original ending, with its sprawling sequence of global takeover, delves deeper into inevitable corruption, the plant's victory a chilling embodiment of how small moral compromises—pricked fingers turning to fed bodies—engender monstrous proliferation. The sensory onslaught of writhing vines and echoing cries evokes the inescapable pull of our baser instincts, suggesting that horror isn't external but rooted in the human psyche, thriving on the blood of our choices. This duality mirrors the film's musical roots, where whimsy masks a Darwinian brutality, the ending a stark reminder that survival often demands devouring the innocent.

Character Arcs and Resolution

Seymour's journey arcs from timid underdog to reluctant anti-hero, his initial prick of blood a psychological tipping point that awakens both the plant and his latent ruthlessness. By the end, whether in triumphant destruction or fatal folly, he confronts the monster he created—literally and within—resolving his arc in a haze of bloodied hands and shattered illusions. The theatrical cut offers closure through heroism, his embrace with Audrey a quiet exhale after the storm, affirming his growth from Skid Row's shadow to suburban light.

Audrey's arc, steeped in abuse's lingering bruises and dreamy escapism, culminates in poignant vulnerability; her plea to the plant in the original cut twists her "Somewhere That's Green" fantasy into a macabre fulfillment, her death feeding the very escape she craved. Orin and Mushnik, as catalysts of violence and opportunism, meet ends that feel like karmic echoes, their demises heightening the tension of Seymour's moral slide. Overall, the resolutions tie the characters' fates to the plant's hunger, leaving audiences with the uneasy aftertaste of how personal horrors ripple outward.

Alternate Interpretations

The ending's ambiguity shines brightest in its dual versions, inviting multiple lenses. One interpretation views the theatrical happy resolution as a subversive nod to audience appeasement, diluting the musical's bite for commercial palatability—Seymour's victory less a true win than a sanitized dream, ignoring the offshoots glimpsed in the final frames, hinting at lurking recurrence. Conversely, the original cut can be seen as an eco-horror allegory, Audrey II as invasive flora overtaking urban decay, a metaphor for environmental revenge where humanity's neglect breeds carnivorous backlash.

Psychologically, some read Seymour's choices as a descent into codependency, the plant embodying toxic relationships that consume both parties; Audrey's willing sacrifice becomes a commentary on self-destructive love, her end (in either cut) a release from Skid Row's psychological cage. These layers keep the tension alive, the ending less a conclusion than a lingering whisper in the dark.

Themes and Symbolism

The ending reinforces core themes of aspiration versus annihilation, Skid Row's gritty pall a symbolic pressure cooker where dreams ferment into nightmares. Audrey II symbolizes forbidden knowledge and the American Dream's devouring underbelly—promising fame and escape but exacting blood, its growth mirroring Seymour's swelling ego amid the shop's humid, petal-strewn confines. Subverted is the horror genre's isolation; here, the monster thrives on communal neglect, the Greek chorus' warnings underscoring collective complicity.

Broader motifs of gender and power weave through: Audrey's abuse and the plant's feminine naming evoke patriarchal violence, while the original ending subverts redemption arcs, positing that some hungers—capitalism's, desire's—cannot be pruned without deeper roots regrowing. The sensory symbolism of bloodied earth and crackling flames evokes a primal cycle, tension building to a psychological release that lingers like sap on the skin.

Final Thoughts

This ending, in its bifurcated brilliance, cements shop (2020) as a cult gem that toys with our expectations, the theatrical cut delivering visceral thrills and uplift while the restored original burrows into the psyche with unrelenting dread. It works masterfully by balancing musical whimsy with horror's chill, the mood shifting from playful tunes to suffocating tension, leaving viewers unsettled yet enchanted. Whether you embrace the fiery triumph or the leafy apocalypse, it captures the film's essence: in the dim glow of ambition, even the greenest dreams can turn ravenous. A must-revisit for its atmospheric depth and interpretive richness.