It's not often these days that producers gamble with a musical.

So you can bet that when one does come along it has to be pretty special.

This one is : its central character is a man-eating plant. And it sings!

Playgoers will find the ending changed from the stage original, but it's a move neither for better nor worse, simply providing the film with a climactic battle between man and plant.

Rick Moranis is the weedy assistant in a (very) downtown flower shop whose discovery of a little plant that grows on blood makes the shop and its owner (Vincent Gardenia) famous, and may even help Rick win his Monroeish co-worker (Ellen Greene) away from her sadistic dentist lover.

This leading trio is so good that it's much to its credit not to be overshadowed by the array of guest stars.

Dentistry may never be the same after Steve Martin's driller-killer (once seen from inside a patient's mouth).

Bill Murray is very droll as his masochistic patient, while big John Candy pops up as the livewire of Skid Row Radio and there's a glimpse of James Belushi as an opportunist eager to take cuttings from the far-from jolly green giant.

Approach it with care when it cries 'Feed Me! '.