| “ | Oh, the gas ain't for you, Seymour. It's for me. You see... I really want to enjoy this. | „ |
| ~ Orin Scrivello, DDS |
Orin Scrivello, DDS is the secondary antagonist from the 1986 hit musical film, Little Shop of Horrors.
He is a cruel, sadistic, and treacherous dentist who shows some symptoms of being a sociopath due to his relishing of other people's misery. Although definitely a villain, he didn't survive very long as his own maliciousness proved to be his undoing as Seymour plots to murder him and feed him to the other antagonist in the story, the monstrous plant known as Audrey II.
During his song, he admits to shooting puppies with a BB Gun, poisoning guppies and finding cats and bashing their heads as a kid.
In his deleted song ("I found a hobby"), it delves further into his love for torture. He mentions that when he was ten years old he saw his first horror feature, to which he got an erection.
He was portrayed by Steve Martin, who also played Mr. Chairman in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and also voiced Captain Smek in Home and Hotep in The Prince of Egypt.
History
Orin Scrivello, DDS is portrayed from the start as a troubled man who is likely insane yet has managed to be a successful dentist (it is implied he is a success due to his talent to inflict torture on others - a stereotype of dentists). He takes delight in his job, where he is free to abuse staff and customer alike without care - however he comes into contact with Seymour when he begins to date Seymour's love interest Audrey, Orin is abusive towards her and this alongside manipulation by Audrey II caused Seymour to plot the murder of Orin in revenge and feed him to Audrey II.
In order to do this Seymour heads over to Orin's surgery to take him up on a previous offer of a free root canal - however he had the misfortune of arriving at Orin's surgery just as he had finished trying to torture a masochistic patient: enraged that he couldn't install fear or pain into the demented patient, he set upon Seymour with sadistic madness, forcing him into a room where he began to torture him - however he wanted things to be "special" so put on a bizarre mask that allowed him to breath in laughing gas, making him high.
Orin became disorientated as a result and although clumsily trying to continue the torture ended up falling over, Seymour pulled out a gun and threatened to shoot Orin but couldn't bring himself into committing the deed - however Orin was already doomed as his mask malfunctioned and he fell to the ground, beginning to choke to death.
Orin's last words were "What did I ever do to you?" to Seymour, who responded "Not what you did to me, what you did to her" and Orin looked puzzled before he finally realized and died with the final line: "Oh.. her.." - his body is later fed to Audrey II by Seymour.
Audrey later expresses guilt over Orin's death despite not being involved because she had always secretly wanted him to disappear due to his behavior towards others. She was likely far from the only one who wished such a fate upon him.
Trivia
- He is commonly mistaken as the main antagonist of the movie. However, Audrey II is the main antagonist since Orin only makes a few appearances throughout the movie, plus Twoey had bigger plans than anyone else.
- Audrey mentioned that she only dated Orin because "he makes good money" and she barely makes any as a florist because business was so poor at her workplace.
- This is parallel to why Seymour put up with the movie's real main villain, the plant (Audrey II).
- His appearance and vocal chords are reminiscent of Elvis Presley.
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