Plot
Children are hidden away in the attic by their conspiring mother and grandmother.
Release Year: 1987
Rating: 5.0/10 (3,932 voted)
Director:
Jeffrey Bloom
Stars: Louise Fletcher, Victoria Tennant, Kristy Swanson
Storyline After the death of her husband, a mother takes her kids off to live with their grandparents in a huge, decrepit old mansion. However, the kids are kept hidden in a room just below the attic, visited only by their mother who becomes less and less concerned about them and their failing health, and more concerned about herself and the inheritence she plans to win back from her dying father, to the point of murder...
Writers: Virginia C. Andrews, Jeffrey Bloom
Cast: Louise Fletcher
-
Grandmother
Victoria Tennant
-
Mother
Kristy Swanson
-
Cathy
Jeb Stuart Adams
-
Chris
Ben Ryan Ganger
-
Cory
Lindsay Parker
-
Carrie
Marshall Colt
-
Father
Nathan Davis
-
Grandfather
Brooke Fries
-
Flower Girl
Alex Koba
-
John Hall
Leonard Mann
-
Bart Winslow
Bruce Neckels
-
Minister
Gus Peters
-
Caretaker
Clare Peck
-
Narrator
(voice)
(as Clare C. Peck)
Taglines:
They have come to a house where secrets are kept....where the future is haunted by the past.....where the innocent live in the shadow of sin.....where a dark legacy awaits to destroy all who defy it.....
Release Date: 20 November 1987
Filming Locations: Castle Hill, Crane Estate - 280 Argilla Road, Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA
Gross: $15,151,736
(USA)
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
According to Kristy Swanson, when she was introduced to Virginia C. Andrews, the elderly author said that Swanson was "just as she pictured Cathy".
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes:
Very obvious wig on Cathy as she gets a haircut from Chris in the bathroom.
Quotes:
[about his grandmother]
Chris:
Look at you in your black dress. Your fancy jewels. Your pinched face. We're not afraid of you! We laugh at you! Do you hear that? We laugh!
User Review
Why isn't anyone else ripping their hair out at this movie?!
Rating: 1/10
I had been debating with myself for years about watching this movie.
Having been an avid fan of the entire series of "Flowers in the Attic"
books, I knew there was a strong possibility the film would do nothing
but irritate me by way of poor acting and even poorer script-writing.
What I didn't realise, was how much of a massacre the film was going to
make of such a beautifully written book.
First off, and I'm sorry - but it is a shallow comment to make: Those
kids; Chris, Cathy, Carrie and Cory are supposed to be stunning. "The
Dresden dolls" because they are *that* striking. Whoever cast the film
seemed to have sorted through the "Village of the Damned" rejects in
order to find the two youngest (scariest looking couple of children I
have ever seen) Chris was, I'm sorry - just nothing like the original
character and while Kristy Swansen is very pretty - she just didn't cut
it as Cathy.
Which brings me to my next point - Cathy's thing is ballet - she's an
excellent dancer - and aside from a couple of pathetic scenes involving
Swansen trying to get her leg higher than her hip-bone, they ignored
the one thing that the entire character centres around.
And just out of interest - where was the relationship between Cathy and
Chris? I know having an incestuous relationship played out in film has
got to be controversial - but don't bother even picking up a pen to
write a script for a story if you have absolutely no intention of
keeping the central story-lines. And if you do, don't have the audacity
to pass it off as the film version of a highly acclaimed book just by
giving it the same title.
"Flowers in the Attic" was based on a true story. (As stated in the
prologue of the copy I have anyway). How - HOW is it OK to just butcher
such an awesome piece of work? It's like passing Pokemon off as the
Mona-Lisa; sick and entirely wrong. They have completely missed the
point of the story: It wasn't about 4 kids sitting in an attic waiting
to die or be let out; it was about four children adapting to a
situation wherein they have to become adults long before their time. It
was about how the relationships between the siblings evolved, and the
psychological consequences of losing one parent through death and
another through greed.
For anyone who has watched the film and is ready to dismiss the books
because of it - seriously; don't be fooled by such an obvious
lacklustre attempt at a book adaptation. There are not enough words in
the English language to explain how wrong this film is - how utterly
and completely pathetic the script, setting, acting, casting, directing
and the 101 other ways in which the movie sucks beyond belief.
And just... just don't get me started on the ending. Every time I think
about it I just want to do nasty things involving pointy objects to the
script-writer.
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