Flowers in the Attic

I completely disagree with the previous summary. Granted I have not read the book, however this movie is a good movie. It might not be the best adaptation of a book but it is a very interesting & scary thriller. I first saw this movie in 1988 when I was 8 & it was scary then. I have seen it since & though a bit sappy it is a scary movie. There are hundreds of other movies that came from the 80's that I would not suggest however this is a pretty good one. Keep in mind the era it was made, but overall it is NOT a bad movie. Maybe we should look at the movie for what it is a movie & not just an adaptation of a book. This movie is truly scary & worth a cheap rental on a rainy Saturday night.

An earlier review here, one of the few positive reviews of this movie on this site, had one thing wrong, saying that those who read the book would appreciate the movie, and vice-versa. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. Having not read the book, I first saw this movie unjaded, and so was able to appreciate it as the sad and tragic story that it is.

The sudden death of a loving husband and father (it appears he may be a little too loving toward the oldest daughter, but the movie doesn't expand on that) leaves the family in despair, so the mother takes the children and herself to her filthy-rich parents' mansion, hoping to inherit the estate from her dying father. Just one little thing: she was long-ago disinherited because she entered into a forbidden marriage, and her father will not grant her an inheritance if he knows the marriage resulted in children, so she and her mother, "The "Grandmother", keep the children hidden in an attic as they await the old man's death, and she tries to win back his approval. The Grandmother is like a cruel warden, treating the children, a teenage boy and girl, and two young twins, boy and girl, like convicted criminals, only worse. The waiting goes on and on, during which the mother is consumed by greed, and emerges as the real villain.

Some readers of the book are indignant that the story was cleaned up for the movie, but that was necessary to make it more watchable to a wider audience. It is still a great and haunting story, reminiscent of the black and white horror flicks of the 1960's ("Whatever Happened To Baby Jane", "Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte", etc.). Audiences of the 1980's were not so jaded as today's, and were not ready for incest, especially among sympathetic characters.

Maybe the acting was not first-rate, and some elements, like the climactic ending, a bit campy, but the compelling storyline easily compensates for it, so long as you don't dwell on the few shortcomings, and can't see the forest for the trees.

And the movie has one thing the book hasn't: a memorably haunting, chilling musical score, a perfect compliment to an equally haunting, chilling story.

My mom had been wanting me to watch this movie ever since she had heard that I had never seen it. It seemed interesting enough and one day when it came on TV I recorded it and decided to watch it later that night. Now, maybe I was just not expecting much from it, but I absolutely loved it the first time I watched it. Then, I realized it was based on a book.

Not long ago I finished the book, and when I look back this movie kind of did not do it justice at all. There was tons of material that was left out and though I like the ending in the movie better than the ending in the book, I thought the book was much more mystifying and eerie. The thing about the movie though is it's entertaining enough on it's own to where I still really enjoy it and the characters are well adapted and played out by the actors and actresses. The movie maintains some eeriness and has a nice, creepy atmosphere, but now I just wish that there was so much more they would've done with the movie.

I guess since I'm not a huge fan of the book, it doesn't really upset me that the movie fails to do it justice, but I really do wish there would be another movie adaptation where it's rated R and they include tons of more important material. In any matter, Flowers in the Attic is enjoyable, entertaining and well executed. It's nothing like the book, so don't expect it to be if you haven't seen it and think you might like to.

"Flowers" is a film based on the cult novel by VC Andrews. There are secrets Chris (Jeb Stuart Adams) and Cathy (Kristy Swanson) never knew about their parents. After their father dies, the teenage siblings, along with their younger brother and sister, are sent to live with their cruel grandmother, Olivia (Louise Fletcher). Olivia is disgusted by the children -- she knows their mother (Victoria Tennant) and father were actually cousins -- and locks the brood in the attic. The kids then try to keep their spirits high in spite of their bleak situation.

Now this film was re-shot and re-edited without the directors approval. The producers harmed the narrative of the story because the test audience was appalled by the incest theme-however that is what drove the book sales and made it almost mandatory reading for the JR High Set.

Now the original version did "Stick close" to the source material. However when they tested the the film to girls around 13 they hated the scenes with incest themes. THE FILM SHOULD OF BEEN FILMED AS A R RATED FILM. Well that is understandable but the book had already been around for over 5 years and the girls that first read the book were now old enough to see an R RATED FILM.

For years people have wanted to see the original directors cut. What is not known is who owns the film now? New World Cinema? MGM? Now if they own the film do they own the outtakes? Most importantly if a company wants to fund the restoration of the directors cut can they? Is the footage still around?

The original quartet of books (Flowers in the Attic; Petals on the Wind; Let There be Thorns; Seeds of Yesterday) combined to tell a controversial and powerful tale of abuse, incest, betrayal, murder, mental distress and collapse, and hidden family secrets. The characters leapt off the page and the situations were memorable.

This film, I'm sorry to say, is feeble and doesn't get even halfway near to doing justice to Virginia Andrews' work. As the key character, Cathy, Kirsty Swanson is all wrong, while her siblings Chris, Carrie, and Cory (played by Jeb Stuart Adams, Lindsay Parker, and Ben Ryan Ganger) don't engage the interest. Perhaps the most interesting character in the film is Corrine, their mother, played by Victoria Tennant, and given a bit of characterisation.

I just think the material is pretty unfilmable without it veering into pseudo-porn or just becoming a catalogue of violence. Stick to the books and avoid this.