Flowers In The Attic (1987): Review
Before Lifetime network secured the film rights to VC Andrews novels the only one of her books that had been adapted into movies was Flowers In the Attic, filmed shortly before her death from breast cancer and one she had a brief cameo in as a maid.
The movie starts out with Cathy giving a brief introduction of her grandmother’s house, a place from her past that she was terrified of. Anyone who has not read the books would wonder why. It will not take long for them to find out. She also goes on to say that her family was very close when she was younger and that she was her father’s favorite child out of the four. She has an older brother named Christopher and younger twin siblings named Cory and Carrie. On her father’s 36th birthday their mother has planned a surprise party for him and when two police officers show up Cathy knows their lives are about to change. Their father is dead and their mother is unable to support them on her. She packs the children up and they are forced to go live with her parents, parents who are very wealthy but have cut her out of their will for an unknown reason.
They arrive very early in the morning and the first two people they encounter are John, a servant in the house and their mysterious grandmother who is cold to them from the moment she sees them. We never learn her name in the movie but the servant’s name is John. In the books we learn her name is Olivia Foxworth. The mother’s name is Corrine. The grandmother, as they call her takes them to a room on the third floor of the house and the children are stunned to learn that they will be staying in that room with the door locked. The grandmother also insists that the boys sleep in one bed, the girls in the other. It’s a perfectly legitimate request since the two oldest are teenagers. Cathy is worried from the start but Christopher isn’t…until he tries to open the window and sees that it has bars on it blocking them from even opening the blinds.
The next day Olivia delivers food to the children, food that has to last them the whole day along with a list of rules for them to follow. She also tells them why their mother is disinherited…their father was their mother’s uncle! She also tells the children they are the devil’s spawn and their grandfather will never know they exist. A prequel to Flowers, written by Andrew Neiderman under VC’s name actually has the childrens’ father being their mother’s half-brother with the same mother and two different fathers. When the twins defy their grandmother’s rules about carrying on and making a lot of noise Olivia makes her daughter show them what kind of punishments await them in her house. The children are horrified to see their mother has been whipped…seventeen times. In the book her punishment is far worse…33 lashes for her age and fifteen for the years of her marriage.
The kids try to make the best of their situation by making a playground in the attic and they start to see their mother less. Cathy and Christopher also become careless in disobeying the grandmother’s rules. After she catches them in the bathroom together she chops off most of Cathy’s hair and starves them for over a week forcing Christopher to feed the twins some of his blood! When Corrine finally returns to see them she doesn’t seem to care how they’ve been mistreated, she just wants their undying love.
Christopher and Cathy manage to find ways to escape their locked room and discover that their mother has been living a life of luxury while they have been suffering and even has a new boyfriend. Their suffering is about to increases tenfold when Cory becomes violently ill. Corrine seems content to stay by and do nothing while Cathy berates her for forgetting she is his mother. Finally Olivia steps in and orders Corrine to take him to the hospital. Hours later she returns and with shocking indifference delivers the news that he is dead. We see a caretaker filling in a grave and there are three more holes dug in the ground. Someone does not want the children to leave the house alive but who?
Christopher doesn’t believe Cory died from pneumonia and his suspicions are confirmed when they find their pet mouse dead after it bit into a sugar cookie the grandmother has been bringing them after she started feeding them again. He starts looking through books he found in the attic and concludes the cookies contain the deadly poison arsenic, He and Cathy now know they have to escape or they will die like Cory. They start sneaking out of the room to steal money from their mother. He also learns their mother is getting married and they decide they will escape that day.
The morning of the wedding we learn it is Corrine poisoning her own children and when the children escape the room they find a copy of their grandfather’s will that states she will lose everything if it is proven she had children from her first marriage. She has already killed one child and meant to kill the other three. Christopher wants to leave but Cathy wants to make sure her mother loses her ill gotten fortune.
They confront Corrine at the altar and Cathy chases her mother out to the balcony and a struggle takes place. Corrine falls over the side and seems to be hanged by her wedding veil. I find it hard to believe the veil would have killed her…it would have been pulled from her hair after being caught but the fall certainly would have killed her.
Over all this was a fairly decent movie but it does leave out some crucial book details and the plot seem rushed. Also the actors playing Cathy and Chris are too old for their roles and Kristy Swanson’s portrayal of Cathy is a bit wooden. Louise Fletcher does an excellent job of playing Olivia and Victoria Tennant also does a fair job of playing Corrine.
Originally published at https://www.tumblr.com on May 9, 2021.
