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I’m not sure why I purchased the lot of all four of these films. I remember the book by V.C. Andrews coming out sometime in the 1970s and the first incarnation of the movie with Victoria Tenant and Louise Fletcher coming out in the 1980s. Flowers in the Attic is the first of the four (or was there one more – I can’t remember) novels and deals with some very uncomfortable topics (incest, for one) and the first film version somewhat whitewashed the more disturbing aspects of the novel. But even with the changes made to the original film version, it was still an extremely creepy, dark and gothic type of film.
I don’t know how Lifetime came to the decision to remake Flowers in the Attic to more closely reflect the novel as it was intended but here they are and this set contains the first two films: Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind. Petals is the better film of the two (in my opinion) but that may be because I prefer (or am used to) the original film version of Flowers. One thing I’m sure of is that I think Victoria Tenant was better in the role of Corrine than Heather Graham, although Ellen Burstyn was just as good as Louise Fletcher as the evil grandmother. But the entire feel of the first Flowers film in narration, music, cinematography was just the right mix to evoke a feeling suited to the overall mood of the film.
The basic premise of the story, for those who are interested, is as follows: a single mom with four children must return to the family estate after her husband dies in an accident. Unable to support her children, she arranges for them to return to the place from which she had been cast out for marrying her uncle. In order for her to return, she must hide the children from her ailing father who will prevent her from inheriting the estate is he learns that the marriage produced children. So the kids are locked away in an upstairs bedroom with access to a large attic where they spend the next few years in isolation as if they had never existed.
With their mother’s reintegration into society and her addiction to the money and entitlement of the life, she takes steps to deal with her children so that they will never interfere with her life, with dire consequences. That’s all I’ll say.
I have to say that I found Heather Graham to seem too young and somewhat flippant to be a widowed mother of four. There was something that was just not quite right about and left the film wanting for me – the darkness was missing and Corrine was a bit too chirpy a character.
Petals on the Wind, on the other hand, brings back a bit of the mood that was missing in Flowers, but just a little. It begins 10 years after the three surviving children escaped the attic and were adopted by a childless doctor, whose passing has left them at odds. Without their adopted father, their memories of the time in the attic resurface and they must each find their way in life. Cathy is a dancer, Christopher is studying to become a doctor, and little Carrie struggles most of all with that sense of never having had a mother figure other than her sister Cathy. She also instinctually senses the attraction between her siblings. It’s all a very icky situation. As they all try and fail to create “normal” lives, another tragedy propels Cathy into revenge mode, again with dire consequences. Heather Graham and Ellen Burstyn return as their evil characters.
I don’t want to get into the details but I do want to say that despite this being the better film of the two, there is a rather campy feel to it in many places. Not exactly funny but not as dark as it should have been, considering.
Nonetheless, I felt like I had to have the set for nostalgia’s sake and so here they are in my collection – good for a rainy day of binge watching.
I kind of recommend these but watch at your own risk!
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