Please Don’t Eat My Mother! 1973

Henry Fudd Buck Kartalian is a shy and timid man who still lives with his mother, and his loneliness pushes him to seek a friend in an unlikely form. After he thinks he hears a plant speak, he brings it home, hoping to coax companionship from a green, growing thing. The plant seems to respond with a sultry, seductive voice, and Henry pours his need for connection into tending it, treating the plant as if it could truly listen. What begins as a curious hobby soon reveals something stranger than kindness: the plant is capable of speech and, astonishingly, hunger. Its appetite starts small—bugs—but quickly escalates to frogs, dogs, and cats, with a curiously twitchy line drawn at elephants. Alongside the appetite, the plant hints at a taste for human company, hinting at a delicious experience with a real woman, much like the pictures Henry keeps hanging on his walls.

One day, Henry’s mother bursts into his room, intent on confronting him with a real woman, only to find Henry and the plant instead. In a brutal turn, the plant consumes her, discovering that women are indeed tasty. The situation intensifies when detective Officer O’Columbus comes to investigate the strange happenings. The plant learns that its diet isn’t meant for men, and it reveals a preference for women.

As the plant’s urges grow, Henry discovers a male specimen, Harry, and the two plants begin to diverge in their appetites: the male plant eats men, while the female plant eats women. A woman shows up, seemingly ready to end Henry’s lifelong virginity, but she is accidentally eaten instead. Heartbroken, Henry contemplates suicide, while the plants grow more passionate with one another. His effort is thwarted by clumsiness, and his mind changes at the last moment when he sees the tiny, new baby plants beginning to sprout, a sign that life might go on in unexpected forms. In the end, the strange alliance of plant life and human longing leaves Henry with a glimmer of hope, even as the garden remains full of unsettling wonders.