Flowers in the Attic (film)
Encyclopedia
Flowers in the Attic is a 1987 horror film
starring Louise Fletcher
, Victoria Tennant
, Kristy Swanson
, and Jeb Stuart Adams
. It is based on the 1979 novel of the same name
by V. C. Andrews. Despite the success of the book on which it is based, the movie was poorly received by both critics and fans.
At one point Wes Craven
was scheduled to direct the film, and he even completed a screenplay draft. Producers were disturbed by his approach to the incest
-laden story, however, and Jeffrey Bloom
ended up with writing and directing duties.
Corinne's mother Olivia, a religious fanatic, takes her daughter and her children into her home, though with the harsh condition that the children must be sequestered away in a locked room so that her husband Malcolm (who is dying) will never know of their existence. To that end, the children are shut up in one bedroom in the mansion, only with access to the mansion's attic via a secret stairway. It is on their first day there that the grandmother reveals the shocking truth: Corinne and her husband were really uncle and niece, making their love incestuous and their children the product of said incest. When Corrine finally returns to the children that night, she is forced to show the children that she has been savagely horsewhipped by her mother as a punishment for her incestuous relationship. Corinne admits to the children that she and their father were uncle and niece, and the children do not say anything but seem to accept it. Corinne tells the children that their confinement will only be for a short time: her father is deathly ill, and once she is able to convince him to secure her inheritance, when he dies they will be free.
The film focuses on the children's ordeal as shut-ins and their clashes with the ultra-religious grandmother, who loathes the children due to their incestuous conception. The children struggle to survive, even as their mother's visits quickly taper off. In particular, Olivia becomes obsessed with Chris and Cathy, out of the warped belief that they have become lovers. Discovering them sleeping in the same bed one morning, the grandmother smashes Cathy's ballerina music box, given to her by her deceased father, and after she discoveres the two innocently talking while Cathy is bathing, she calls them sinners. Chris manages to chase her out, but later on Olivia ambushes Cathy in the bedroom, locks the door to the attic so that Chris cannot help Cathy, and hacks off her hair with a pair of scissors. She then starves them for a week, and Chris is forced to feed Cory his own blood so he doesn't die of starvation.
As time goes on, the children are often sick, especially the younger ones. Chris and Cathy manage to secretly remove the hinges from their locked door on a few occasions to sneak out of their room, and discover that their mother has been living a life of luxury as well as dating a young lawyer. She does eventually come to visit them again, and they confront her about leaving them there to suffer and ignoring them. Corinne is very defensive and acts insulted, cries that they are cruel to think that she is deliberately neglecting them, or enjoying life while they are locked up. She storms out. Shortly after, Cory becomes deathly ill. The children ask Olivia and Corinne to take Cory to the hospital, which they do, but later Corinne returns to inform them Cory has died. The children are devastated, but not long after they start to suspect that Olivia has been poisoning all of them with arsenic (mixed in the sugar on the cookies they are served with the breakfast) when their pet mouse Fred is found dead after eating part of a cookie. The remaining siblings decide to leave the attic once and for all.
Chris sneaks out to steal money before they escape and discovers that their mother is planning to wed her new boyfriend at the mansion the next morning. Though upset, he suggests they dress up in fancy clothes from the attic, and use the wedding as a cover to sneak out of the house. When the grandmother secretly enters their bedroom the next day, hoping to catch them once more doing something "evil", Chris takes her by surprise and beats her down into unconsciousness with a bedpost. As they are headed out, Cathy decides to go reveal themselves to their grandfather (whom they had a brief run-in with earlier in the film, while investigating their mother's absence) only to find that he had died months earlier. They also find a copy of his will, which ultimately connects the final dots -- they realize that their mother Corinne is the one who was poisoning the cookies all along. Corrine's father, still suspicious of his daughter, put a clause in his will that would disinherit her if it is ever revealed that she had children from her first marriage.
The children crash the wedding ceremony and expose their mother to the guests and the groom; Corinne refuses to acknowledge the children as her own or to admit to poisoning Cory. Cathy offers her an arsenic-coated cookie as a wedding present, and in fury tries to force her mother to eat it, chasing her out to a balcony, where after a brief struggle, Corinne falls and is killed when her veil is caught on a trellis, breaking her neck. Afterward, the children leave the mansion as their grandmother looks on with scorn; the narrator (an older Cathy's voiceover) explains that the children eventually did manage to survive all by themselves and wonders aloud if her grandmother is still alive and anticipating Cathy's eventual return to claim the family's fortune.
was rejected by the producers, though), before choosing the script by Jeffrey Bloom
, who would also direct. Obviously, Bloom's script was the one that was the closest to the novel, but, as he did not have full control over the matter of the film, the numerous producers and the two studios forcefully made changes in the script, thus stripping it from many plot points and themes of the novel, including the incestuous relationship between the oldest siblings. Bloom said that there was a lot of conflict in production but could do nothing to talk the producers out of the many drastic changes made in the script.
Originally, Bloom wanted David Shire
to score the film, but Christopher Young
was chosen by the producers instead.
and Victoria Tennant
were cast as the Grandmother and Mother, respectively, while the four children were played by newcomers Kristy Swanson
, Jeb Stuart Adams
, Ben Ryan Ganger and Lindsay Parker
. Swanson once claimed that when V.C. Andrews met her, she said that Swanson was just like she pictured Cathy.
Being a fairly low-budget production, Bloom said, big names were not considered for any role in the film. Jeffrey Bloom had a young Sharon Stone
audition for the film, but he could not convince the producers to give her the part of Corrine, the mother.
Andrews was also given a cameo as a maid in Foxworth Hall, scrubbing the glass of a window after Chris and Cathy attempt to escape from the rooftop. Anne Patty, present at the filming of Andrews's scene, said that her part is metaphor
ical. "The writer is a person who wipes the window clean so that the reader can clearly see into the lives of the characters".
Bloom claims that, after the filming was completed, the producers approached him to refilm a new ending, and one of the many ideas was that the siblings accidentally kill Corinne during their escape. Bloom tried to talk them out of it and when he was unable to convince them otherwise, he eventually quit. The new ending, partly inspired by the ending of Wes Craven's own screenplay, was eventually filmed by someone else.
Also, Victoria Tennant is said to have stormed off the set angrily after shooting the death of her character.
won a Young Artist Award
in 1989
for her portrayal of Cathy Dollanganger, while in 1988
, Louise Fletcher
was nominated for a Saturn Award
for her performance as the Grandmother.
herself, a sequel to the film adaptation based on the novel's sequel, Petals on the Wind
, was planned but eventually it never reached production. The film would be based on the same plotline of the sequel novel, with the exception of the lack of Corinne Foxworth's character since she was killed off in the original film.
Swanson agreed to do the part one more time but she was never contacted again about the film after she was sent the script: "I was sent a script of Petals on the Wind and it never took off... I remember running into Louise Fletcher
in Santa Barbara
about four years ago. She asked me if I had gotten the Petals on the Wind script, which I had, and she wanted to know if I had read it. I told her I had and that they had called me about it. I was interested but then I didn't hear from them anymore. And apparently the same thing happened with her. It's like they wanted to do it but they couldn't get it off the ground... When I read the script, I wasn't too thrilled with it. I know Cathy goes through a lot in the next book, and the script was a real "sexfest." She gets pregnant and has so many affairs. There's her brother, Christopher, and then she has an affair with Julian, the dancer, and there's Paul, the doctor. I was actually kind of wondering if I should even do a sequel, you know? I just didn't know if it should be done."
(the ghost writer for all the V.C. Andrews books penned after her death in 1986) and is currently awaiting to be greenlit.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
starring Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes...
, Victoria Tennant
Victoria Tennant
Victoria Tennant is an English film and television actress.-Early life:Tennant was born in London, England. Her mother, Irina Baronova, was a Russian prima ballerina who appeared with the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo, and her father, Cecil Tennant, was an English producer and talent agent who ran...
, Kristy Swanson
Kristy Swanson
Kristen Nöel "Kristy" Swanson is an American actress best known for playing Buffy in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also played Catherine "Cathy" Dollanganger in the movie version of the V.C...
, and Jeb Stuart Adams
Jeb Stuart Adams
Jeb Stuart Adams is a former actor, he comes from a family of actors including his parents Nick Adams and Carol Nugent. He gave up acting and is now a successful realtor in Ventura County, California.- Family :...
. It is based on the 1979 novel of the same name
Flowers in the Attic
Flowers in the Attic is a 1979 novel by Virginia Andrews. It is the first book in the Dollanganger Series, and was followed by Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The novel is written in the first person from the point of view of Cathy Dollanganger...
by V. C. Andrews. Despite the success of the book on which it is based, the movie was poorly received by both critics and fans.
At one point Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the...
was scheduled to direct the film, and he even completed a screenplay draft. Producers were disturbed by his approach to the incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
-laden story, however, and Jeffrey Bloom
Jeffrey Bloom
Jeffrey Bloom is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and photographer, currently residing in Studio City, California. His film projects include Flowers in the Attic and Dogpound Shuffle.-Early life:...
ended up with writing and directing duties.
Plot
After the sudden death of their father, four children — teenagers Chris and Cathy and 4-year-old twins Cory and Carrie — find themselves penniless and forced to travel with their mother Corinne to live with her wealthy parents (whom the children had neither met nor been told about before). Corinne informs her children that there has been tension between herself and her parents for many years, but does not elaborate and simply says they had cut her out of their lives for something she had done that they disapproved of. The children trust her, though Cathy is skeptical at times.Corinne's mother Olivia, a religious fanatic, takes her daughter and her children into her home, though with the harsh condition that the children must be sequestered away in a locked room so that her husband Malcolm (who is dying) will never know of their existence. To that end, the children are shut up in one bedroom in the mansion, only with access to the mansion's attic via a secret stairway. It is on their first day there that the grandmother reveals the shocking truth: Corinne and her husband were really uncle and niece, making their love incestuous and their children the product of said incest. When Corrine finally returns to the children that night, she is forced to show the children that she has been savagely horsewhipped by her mother as a punishment for her incestuous relationship. Corinne admits to the children that she and their father were uncle and niece, and the children do not say anything but seem to accept it. Corinne tells the children that their confinement will only be for a short time: her father is deathly ill, and once she is able to convince him to secure her inheritance, when he dies they will be free.
The film focuses on the children's ordeal as shut-ins and their clashes with the ultra-religious grandmother, who loathes the children due to their incestuous conception. The children struggle to survive, even as their mother's visits quickly taper off. In particular, Olivia becomes obsessed with Chris and Cathy, out of the warped belief that they have become lovers. Discovering them sleeping in the same bed one morning, the grandmother smashes Cathy's ballerina music box, given to her by her deceased father, and after she discoveres the two innocently talking while Cathy is bathing, she calls them sinners. Chris manages to chase her out, but later on Olivia ambushes Cathy in the bedroom, locks the door to the attic so that Chris cannot help Cathy, and hacks off her hair with a pair of scissors. She then starves them for a week, and Chris is forced to feed Cory his own blood so he doesn't die of starvation.
As time goes on, the children are often sick, especially the younger ones. Chris and Cathy manage to secretly remove the hinges from their locked door on a few occasions to sneak out of their room, and discover that their mother has been living a life of luxury as well as dating a young lawyer. She does eventually come to visit them again, and they confront her about leaving them there to suffer and ignoring them. Corinne is very defensive and acts insulted, cries that they are cruel to think that she is deliberately neglecting them, or enjoying life while they are locked up. She storms out. Shortly after, Cory becomes deathly ill. The children ask Olivia and Corinne to take Cory to the hospital, which they do, but later Corinne returns to inform them Cory has died. The children are devastated, but not long after they start to suspect that Olivia has been poisoning all of them with arsenic (mixed in the sugar on the cookies they are served with the breakfast) when their pet mouse Fred is found dead after eating part of a cookie. The remaining siblings decide to leave the attic once and for all.
Chris sneaks out to steal money before they escape and discovers that their mother is planning to wed her new boyfriend at the mansion the next morning. Though upset, he suggests they dress up in fancy clothes from the attic, and use the wedding as a cover to sneak out of the house. When the grandmother secretly enters their bedroom the next day, hoping to catch them once more doing something "evil", Chris takes her by surprise and beats her down into unconsciousness with a bedpost. As they are headed out, Cathy decides to go reveal themselves to their grandfather (whom they had a brief run-in with earlier in the film, while investigating their mother's absence) only to find that he had died months earlier. They also find a copy of his will, which ultimately connects the final dots -- they realize that their mother Corinne is the one who was poisoning the cookies all along. Corrine's father, still suspicious of his daughter, put a clause in his will that would disinherit her if it is ever revealed that she had children from her first marriage.
The children crash the wedding ceremony and expose their mother to the guests and the groom; Corinne refuses to acknowledge the children as her own or to admit to poisoning Cory. Cathy offers her an arsenic-coated cookie as a wedding present, and in fury tries to force her mother to eat it, chasing her out to a balcony, where after a brief struggle, Corinne falls and is killed when her veil is caught on a trellis, breaking her neck. Afterward, the children leave the mansion as their grandmother looks on with scorn; the narrator (an older Cathy's voiceover) explains that the children eventually did manage to survive all by themselves and wonders aloud if her grandmother is still alive and anticipating Cathy's eventual return to claim the family's fortune.
Cast
- Louise FletcherLouise FletcherLouise Fletcher is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes...
as Olivia Foxworth (Grandmother) - Victoria TennantVictoria TennantVictoria Tennant is an English film and television actress.-Early life:Tennant was born in London, England. Her mother, Irina Baronova, was a Russian prima ballerina who appeared with the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo, and her father, Cecil Tennant, was an English producer and talent agent who ran...
as Corrine Dollanganger (Mother) - Kristy SwansonKristy SwansonKristen Nöel "Kristy" Swanson is an American actress best known for playing Buffy in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also played Catherine "Cathy" Dollanganger in the movie version of the V.C...
as Cathy Dollanganger - Jeb Stuart AdamsJeb Stuart AdamsJeb Stuart Adams is a former actor, he comes from a family of actors including his parents Nick Adams and Carol Nugent. He gave up acting and is now a successful realtor in Ventura County, California.- Family :...
as Chris Dollanganger - Ben Ryan Ganger as Cory Dollanganger
- Lindsay ParkerLindsay ParkerLindsay Parker is an actress who got her start as Little Girl on an episode of MacGyver . She played the voice of Corey in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue and has remained active in acting up until the present...
as Carrie Dollanganger - Marshall ColtMarshall ColtMarshall N. Colt is a marriage, family, and life enhancement therapist in San Diego, California, who was an actor of film and television from 1976 to 1995...
as Christopher Dollanganger (Father) - Nathan Davis as Malcolm Foxworth (Grandfather)
- Brooke Fries as Flower Girl
- Alex Koba as John Hall, the butler
- Leonard MannLeonard Mann-Life:He served in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I, and with the Department of Aircraft Production in World War II.-External links:*...
as Bart Winslow - Bruce Neckels as Minister
- Gus Peters as Caretaker
- Clare Peck as Cathy (narrator)
- V. C. Andrews as Window-washing maid (uncredited)
Pre-Production
V.C. Andrews herself demanded and, eventually, got script approval when she sold the film rights to producers Thomas Fries and Sy Levin. She turned down five scripts (the notorious, violent and graphic screenplay by Wes CravenWes Craven
Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the...
was rejected by the producers, though), before choosing the script by Jeffrey Bloom
Jeffrey Bloom
Jeffrey Bloom is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and photographer, currently residing in Studio City, California. His film projects include Flowers in the Attic and Dogpound Shuffle.-Early life:...
, who would also direct. Obviously, Bloom's script was the one that was the closest to the novel, but, as he did not have full control over the matter of the film, the numerous producers and the two studios forcefully made changes in the script, thus stripping it from many plot points and themes of the novel, including the incestuous relationship between the oldest siblings. Bloom said that there was a lot of conflict in production but could do nothing to talk the producers out of the many drastic changes made in the script.
Originally, Bloom wanted David Shire
David Shire
David Lee Shire is an American songwriter and the composer of stage musicals, film and television scores. The soundtrack to the movie The Taking of Pelham 123 and parts of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack such as Night on Disco Mountain, an adaptation of Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald...
to score the film, but Christopher Young
Christopher Young
Christopher Young is an American music composer for both film and television.Many of his music compositions are for horror films, including Hellraiser, Tales from the Hood, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Urban Legend, and Drag Me to Hell...
was chosen by the producers instead.
Casting
Veteran actresses Louise FletcherLouise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes...
and Victoria Tennant
Victoria Tennant
Victoria Tennant is an English film and television actress.-Early life:Tennant was born in London, England. Her mother, Irina Baronova, was a Russian prima ballerina who appeared with the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo, and her father, Cecil Tennant, was an English producer and talent agent who ran...
were cast as the Grandmother and Mother, respectively, while the four children were played by newcomers Kristy Swanson
Kristy Swanson
Kristen Nöel "Kristy" Swanson is an American actress best known for playing Buffy in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also played Catherine "Cathy" Dollanganger in the movie version of the V.C...
, Jeb Stuart Adams
Jeb Stuart Adams
Jeb Stuart Adams is a former actor, he comes from a family of actors including his parents Nick Adams and Carol Nugent. He gave up acting and is now a successful realtor in Ventura County, California.- Family :...
, Ben Ryan Ganger and Lindsay Parker
Lindsay Parker
Lindsay Parker is an actress who got her start as Little Girl on an episode of MacGyver . She played the voice of Corey in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue and has remained active in acting up until the present...
. Swanson once claimed that when V.C. Andrews met her, she said that Swanson was just like she pictured Cathy.
Being a fairly low-budget production, Bloom said, big names were not considered for any role in the film. Jeffrey Bloom had a young Sharon Stone
Sharon Stone
Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct...
audition for the film, but he could not convince the producers to give her the part of Corrine, the mother.
Filming
Louise Fletcher wanted to get deep inside her role, so she called Andrews one night to ask about the motivation of her character in the film. She was also so in the part, that she stayed strictly within the character of the Grandmother all the time, even when she wasn't shooting. "I couldn't let myself think about distractions like what a beautiful day or what are we going to have for lunch?" she said in an interview.Andrews was also given a cameo as a maid in Foxworth Hall, scrubbing the glass of a window after Chris and Cathy attempt to escape from the rooftop. Anne Patty, present at the filming of Andrews's scene, said that her part is metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
ical. "The writer is a person who wipes the window clean so that the reader can clearly see into the lives of the characters".
Bloom claims that, after the filming was completed, the producers approached him to refilm a new ending, and one of the many ideas was that the siblings accidentally kill Corinne during their escape. Bloom tried to talk them out of it and when he was unable to convince them otherwise, he eventually quit. The new ending, partly inspired by the ending of Wes Craven's own screenplay, was eventually filmed by someone else.
Also, Victoria Tennant is said to have stormed off the set angrily after shooting the death of her character.
Post-production
Jeffrey Bloom had no involvement in the final edit of the film, as he had walked off the set, and the new ending was inserted. He also claimed that, regarding scenes involving the incest between Chris and Cathy, scenes were indeed cut. The original ending is said to have the children secretly escaping the mansion while their mother is getting married, without crashing her wedding.Differences between the book and film versions
- In the film, Chris and Cathy are about 14 and 17, while in the book they are 12 and 14 when they are first locked in the attic.
- For the father's birthday party in the book, the family invited friends of theirs, but in the film, it was just the children and their mother.
- The children are held captive for only one year in the film, versus three and a half years in the book.
- There is no explicit sexual tension or incest between Chris and Cathy in the film, whereas it is a major theme in the latter part of the book. Incest is hinted but never shown in the film
- In the novel, the children are feed poisoned dougnuts. In the film, it is cookies.
- In the film, the grandmother knocks out Cathy by shoving her from behind and shoving her in the face before cutting most of her hair off, whereas in the book, she orders Chris to cut it off, but he doesn't, so she sneaks into the room at night, drugs her, then pours hot tar on her head.
- In the novel, after a heated argument between Chris and the grandmother, the old woman brutally thrashes both older siblings with a green willow switch, for Chris's audacity towards her. There is no abuse that brutal in the film.
- Cathy and Chris didn't interact with the grandfather in the book, whereas in the film, they find the sick grandfather and approach him, and Cathy is snatched by him (he is delirious and thinks she is Corinne).
- In the book the mother married Bart Winslow during their imprisonment, while in the film she is getting married at the end but her surviving children crash the wedding before the ceremony is completed.
- In the film, the mother is accidentally killed when Cathy pushes her off a balcony during a fight. In the novel, she doesn't die until the third book.
- Cathy loses her hair and the children are starved after the grandmother catches Cathy and Chris in an imappropiate scene; in the book, she caught Chris watching Cathy as she admired her naked self. In the film, she caught them talking while Cathy was bathing.
- Unlike the book, in the movie, the windows in the children's bedroom have bars in them, and there are fierce guard dogs outside, preventing them from escaping.
- John Amos appears only briefly and doesn't interact with the children in the novel, while in the movie, he acts as a henchman to the grandmother, watching over the children and preventing them from getting out of their bedroom.
- In the film, the children get out of their room after Chris hits their grandmother over the head with a piece of wood. In the book, Chris fashions a key out of wood about nine months before they leave.
- In the book, Cathy kisses the stepfather while he is asleep, leading Chris to rape her in a jealous rage. In the film, nothing like that ever happens.
- In the novel, it is assumed that Cory's body was put in a hidden room in the attic after his death. In the film, he is buried in a grave on the property.
- In the novel, it is the mother and grandmother who take Cory away as he was dying. In the film, it is John Amos.
- In the novel, in Cathy's perspective, her mother was very loving and devoted to her and her siblings before their ordeal. In the film, it appears that the mother was jealous of the attention the children, especially Cathy, got from their father.
- In the novel, the children bring two suitcases and their mother purposely leaves hers behind on the train. In the film, they bring several suitcases with them.
- In the novel, Cathy and Chris often escaped from the room by climbing off the roof, and even went swimming one time. In the film, they attempted to escape, but the guard dogs chased them back to their room.
- In the novel, they test their poisoned dougnuts on Cory's pet mouse to confirm that they were poisoned. In the film, they learn of the poisoning after finding the mouse dead and researching its cause of death.
- In the novel, Chris learns the awful truth about their mother while searching for money and jewels to steal by eavesdropping on John Amos. In the film, the three surviving children learn after escaping from their room and searching through their grandfather's room, where they found a copy of his will.
- In the novel, as they escaped, Carrie was so weak from the poison that she couldn't walk and stay awake. In the film, she is able to do those things.
- In the novel, the mother showers the children with lots of gifts during their imprisonment. In the film, she brings them a few gifts.
- In the novel, the mother intially attends secretarial school during the children's first year in the attic. In the film, she never does such a thing and lives a luxury lifestyle from the beginning.
- In the film, the grandmother smashes Cathy's ballerina carosile to punish her for sleeping in the same bed as Chris. In the novel, she was forced to leave it behind.
- In the novel, the surviving children escaped from the house by sneaking out in the early morning hour. In the film, they left after their mother's accidental death.
Awards and nominations
Despite the fact that the film's reception by fans of the book and critics was mostly negative, Kristy SwansonKristy Swanson
Kristen Nöel "Kristy" Swanson is an American actress best known for playing Buffy in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also played Catherine "Cathy" Dollanganger in the movie version of the V.C...
won a Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...
in 1989
1989 in film
-Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million...
for her portrayal of Cathy Dollanganger, while in 1988
1988 in film
-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:* Act of Piracy* Action Jackson, starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson, Vanity, Sharon Stone* The Adventures of Baron Munchausen* Akira* Alice...
, Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes...
was nominated for a Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
for her performance as the Grandmother.
Sequel
According to Kristy SwansonKristy Swanson
Kristen Nöel "Kristy" Swanson is an American actress best known for playing Buffy in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she also played Catherine "Cathy" Dollanganger in the movie version of the V.C...
herself, a sequel to the film adaptation based on the novel's sequel, Petals on the Wind
Petals on the Wind
Petals on the Wind is a novel written by V. C. Andrews in 1980. It is the second book in the Dollanganger series. The timeline takes place from the siblings' successful escape in November 1960 to the fall of 1975.-Plot:...
, was planned but eventually it never reached production. The film would be based on the same plotline of the sequel novel, with the exception of the lack of Corinne Foxworth's character since she was killed off in the original film.
Swanson agreed to do the part one more time but she was never contacted again about the film after she was sent the script: "I was sent a script of Petals on the Wind and it never took off... I remember running into Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher
Louise Fletcher is an American actress best known for her role as Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and as Kai Winn Adami in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She also guest starred on the science fiction television series Heroes...
in Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
about four years ago. She asked me if I had gotten the Petals on the Wind script, which I had, and she wanted to know if I had read it. I told her I had and that they had called me about it. I was interested but then I didn't hear from them anymore. And apparently the same thing happened with her. It's like they wanted to do it but they couldn't get it off the ground... When I read the script, I wasn't too thrilled with it. I know Cathy goes through a lot in the next book, and the script was a real "sexfest." She gets pregnant and has so many affairs. There's her brother, Christopher, and then she has an affair with Julian, the dancer, and there's Paul, the doctor. I was actually kind of wondering if I should even do a sequel, you know? I just didn't know if it should be done."
Remake
First referenced as "The MGM Deal" in May 2008, Flowers in the Attic is in talks to be remade. The screenplay has been written by Andrew NeidermanAndrew Neiderman
Andrew Neiderman is an American novelist. He became the ghost writer for V. C. Andrews following her death in 1986. He formerly taught English at Fallsburg Jr./Sr. High School, in upstate New York. Neiderman is married to the former model Diane Wilson. They have two children, Melissa, a teacher...
(the ghost writer for all the V.C. Andrews books penned after her death in 1986) and is currently awaiting to be greenlit.