FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC: Blu-ray reissue (New World, 1987) Arrow Academy

By the time director, Jeffrey Bloom’s Flowers in the Attic hit theaters in 1987, author, V.C. Andrews' clout, as well as her enormous cult following had reached its zenith in the publishing industry – regrettably, one year after the author’s untimely death from breast cancer. Andrews herself would make her one and only screen appearance as a maid, washing windows in this movie. Indeed, the Dollanganger franchise, kick-started by this brooding, terribly compelling and bizarrely wicked page-turner about family incest and betrayal, first published in 1979, had been followed by the runaway literary successes of Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, Garden of Shadows, Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger and Christopher's Diary: Secret Brother. Tapping into elements of the Gothic horror and family saga, Andrews’ popularity was so secure with her readership, her estate hired ghost writer, Andrew Neiderman to keep her various franchises alive even after she was gone; spawning several new series in her absence. But by far, Flowers in the Attic remained the touchstone in Andrew’s publishing dynasty, translated into 19 languages, and, garnering critical praise all over the world.  Despite its status, the novel was not without controversy; its depictions of incest between an adolescent brother and sister, causing the book to be banned for its ‘offensive passages’. While Andrews never claimed the book’s events were based on a true story, after her death rumors began to circulate, much of the plot had been ‘borrowed’ from actual events told to her by a doctor, whom she had developed a crush on; he, supposedly regaling her with a tale of being locked away, along with his siblings, in an attic for nearly 6-years to preserve his family’s wealth. Whatever the truth and/or hyperbole in this, there is little to deny the impact Flowers in the Attic had on several generations of young girls, who devoured the text with a voracity that carried Andrews’ through as their author du jour for many years to follow.

Perhaps to avoid further controversy – and, the dreaded ‘R’ rating – Bloom’s cinematic adaptation jettisons all references to family incest. In the novel, the Dollanganger’s mother, Corrine is condemned by her grandfather, Malcolm for having wed her father’s half-brother; their teenage offspring, Cathy and Chris, developing a physical attraction toward one another as the story progresses.  Further alterations to the book outraged die hard fans, but proved necessary. Bloom’s screenplay basically discards the novel’s last act, and adds a brutal tone of the macabre, pushing the film’s boundaries into the horror genre to which the novel, while haunting in its own right, never belonged. In the novel, Corrine weds Bart Winslow, her grandfather’s attorney. This penultimate betrayal is thwarted in the movie’s big climax: Corrine, in her wedding gown, pushed to her death by eldest daughter, Cathy from a balcony on the Foxworth estate; the truth about Corrine’s deliberate poisoning of her own children, exposed to the stunned attendees gathered for her nuptials.  As in the book, the elder Dollanganger children bond to protect their younger defenseless siblings, Carrie and Cory from their grandmother, Olivia’s lethal influences. However, in the novel, Cathy and Chris’ evolve their relationship into a sexual partnership, tested after Cathy sneaks into Bart’s room one night and kisses him while he sleeps. Outraged, Chris rapes his sister, but then suffers remorse and is forgiven by Cathy, as her burgeoning curiosity about sex has been fulfilled.

As in the novel, Cory falls ill after unsuspectingly eating powdered donuts (cookies, in the movie) laced with arsenic – a daily treat, brought up to the attic by Corrine. However, unlike the novel, Corrine explains to her remaining children Cory has died overnight from pneumonia. Shortly thereafter, she and Bart move away, leaving Cathy, Chris and Carrie in Olivia’s care. Eavesdropping on the servants, Chris discovers Malcolm has died months ago; ergo, there is no reason for them to be kept out of sight in the attic. Chris also learns Olivia is responsible for the doughnuts sprinkled with rat poison to cure the estate of its rat infestation. Escaping Foxworth Hall by night, Cathy, Chris and Carrie flee by train to Florida; Chris, revealing at the depot how Corrine’s inheritance was conditional on her having no descendants from her first marriage. Hence, it was she who was poisoning them to secure her father’s estate. Chris and Cathy decide against contacting the police, their main objective now, to protect and rear Carrie together. As Chris endeavors to begin anew, Cathy contemplates seeking revenge on her mother.

Given the megawatt status of Flowers in the Attic in print, oddly enough, it took more than a decade to bring it to the screen. Under the terms of her contract, V. C. Andrews received initial script approval from producers, Thomas Fries and Sy Levin. In short order, she rejected 5 potential adaptations, including a ruthless and graphic re-interpretation of her book by horror-meister, Wes Craven.  As Jeffrey Bloom’s script remained closest to the novel, Andrews eventually accepted it, assuming he would also direct the picture. This satisfied producers – at least, in the moment, and fulfilled their contractual obligations to Andrews. But the screenplay continued to morph thereafter, the daily tug-o-war between Fries Entertainment, and New World Pictures, its distributors, leading to wholesale cuts that emasculated much of Bloom’s carefully constructed subplots and themes, faithful to the novel. Gone – the incestuous relationship between Cathy and Chris. While much of the picture would be shot at Castle Hill, a Tudor revival mansion in Ipswich, Massachusetts, the opening sequence, where the children apprehensively walk towards its imposing edifice, was actually photographed on a rolling green near the ocean. The ‘revised’ finale – Corrine’s thwarted wedding day – took place at Beverly Hill’s famed Greystone Mansion; itself, the sight of a grisly murder/suicide: Edward Laurence ‘Ned’ Doheny Jr., heir to an oil empire, shot through the head by his male social secretary and presumed gay lover, Hugh Plunkett in 1892.

While Bloom endeavored to get the movie back on track – narratively speaking, he was powerless to have a positive influence on the production’s ever-revolving roster of producers, who continued to muck around with his screenplay. Bloom even lost the battle to have David Shire score the picture; Christopher Young, chosen by producers in his stead.  Casting proved another hurdle. As the picture was modestly budgeted, big stars were out of the question. Nevertheless, Flowers in the Attic benefited from Louise Fletcher – older, and re-channeling her efforts as Nurse Ratched from 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Fletcher had won an Oscar for this), herein, with a dash of Mrs. Danvers from Hitchcock’s first American masterpiece, Rebecca (1940) into this beady-eyed and contemptible gargoyle. Indeed, Fletcher immersed herself in the part, remaining in character - even between takes. For Corrine, Bloom auditioned, and had been impressed with a young Sharon Stone; producers, rejecting Stone outright, due to her lack of experience, to pursue veteran actress, Victoria Tennant. For the children, virtual unknowns were sought; Kristy Swanson (Cathy), Jeb Stuart Adams (Chris), Ben Ryan Ganger (Cory), and Lindsay Parker (Carrie), respectively. Swanson was fortunate enough to actually meet V.C. Andrews on the set, the authoress offering high praise to her as the embodiment of Cathy.

The real/‘reel’ tragedy of Flowers in the Attic is that it proved a cause célèbre, daily to create friction between Bloom and the producers. Ordered to re-shoot the picture’s ending with the finale as it exists today, Cathy causing her own mother to fall to her death from a balcony, her wedding veil entangled in a woody trellis, thus strangling her (indeed, a complication lifted directly from Wes Craven’s original screenplay), Bloom instead quit (or was fired from) the production. Although he had shot scenes to depict the incest between Chris and Cathy, in Bloom’s absence these moments were likewise expunged.  For years, it has been suggested Bloom’s rough assemblage of footage before his departure, played badly with a test audience made up mostly of adolescent girls, precisely because of these incestuous scenes. However, in more recent times, Bloom has gone on record, judging the producers as spineless in their desire to secure the more ‘family friendly’ PG-13 rating. If anything, the audience disliked the scene where Corrine disrobes in front of Malcom to be whipped by Olivia – ironically, to remain in the picture. But Bloom’s original ending, Olivia’s desperate attempt to slaughter the children with a butcher knife, was universally panned as repugnant and not in keeping with the tone of Andrews’ novel. Victoria Tennant balked at shooting the new ending where her character dies. Indeed, Corrine features prominently in the first three Dollenganger novels and, at the time, it was anticipated the film franchise, based on Andrews’ novels, would continue, immediately following the successful debut of this movie. So, the finale to Flowers in the Attic was re-shot with Tennant’s stunt double instead. Yet, even as the picture was being prepped for its premiere, various opinions intervened, producers left to tamper and tinker in the editing process, chiefly to remove ‘sensitive content’, but also, to streamline the picture’s run time and secure more theatrical screenings. As all of this took time, the original premiere was pushed back from March to November, 1987.

Scenes excised from the final cut, though ironically, to turn up in a ‘behind-the-scenes’ TV promo, depicted Chris and Cathy exploring Corrine’s bedroom, finding no concrete evidence of their former lives together. Other scenes removed from the picture: Chris, observing his sister undressing and preparing for a bath, and, a moment immediately following the shocking death of Cory, showing Corrine confronting Olivia, only to be greeted by Olivia’s wickedly beaming visage, implying she had been responsible for the child’s untimely demise. While the principal players could scarcely grumble about these deletions, Alex Koba, who played John Hall, the stoic butler of Foxworth Hall, became incensed after key elements of the story, featuring a twist with his character at the very end, were shot, but then unceremoniously cut without further explanation: his performance, reduced to one line of dialogue, Hall pushing a serving cart back and forth across the dining room. “They had three different endings for that movie,” Koba explained to anyone who would listen, “…and they picked the worst one: the one you’re seeing now." Indeed, in Bloom’s original finale, Chris, Cathy and Carrie escape the attic and crash Corrine’s wedding. Cathy makes it known to all they are Corrine’s children, and, furthermore, explains how they have endured starvation and murder at their mother and grandmother’s hands. Corrine feigns ignorance, but cannot shirk the emaciated appearance of her children. This backs up their story. Incensed, Olivia attacks Cathy with a butcher knife; the girl, spared by Hall’s valiant butler, who prevents her death, allowing Chris, Cathy and Carrie to leave Foxworth while the horrified wedding guests look on. For some years after the picture’s general release, rumors abounded Bloom was hard at work on a ‘director’s cut’ to find its way to home video. For whatever reasons, this never materialized, and, given the demise of the indie production house footing its bills, it remains doubtful any of this extemporaneous footage – deemed ‘unusable’ in 1987 – has survived.

The cinematic Flowers in the Attic opens with Cathy’s oddly romantic devotion to her father, Christopher (Marshall Colt). Corrine jealously observes her husband give Cathy a porcelain figurine of a ballerina on her birthday which the young girl worships as a sort of altar to her father’s love for her. Not long thereafter, the family receives word Christopher has been involved in a terrible auto accident. His death leaves the family penniless. Cathy is devastated, turning her wounded affections inward and looking up to elder brother, Chris. Very early on, Bloom’s screenplay establishes Chris and Cathy as surrogate parents for their younger siblings: 5-year-old twins, Cory and Carrie. Corrine then rocks the family’s foundation to its core, informing everyone she has decided to return home to live with her wealthy parents, Olivia and Malcolm, who disowned her for marrying Christopher, but are now, seemingly willing to let the past go. Olivia, a religious zealot, orders her daughter to sequester the children in a locked attic to keep their presence a secret from Malcolm, who is dying. Simultaneously baffled and terrorized, Chris and Cathy make a game of their imprisonment to calm their younger siblings, and discover a secret passage that allows them access to various rooms in the mansion’s attic. In Corrine’s absence, Chris and Cathy begin to suspect something more cynical is afoot. Indeed, Olivia exposes them to the truth about their father; he was Malcolm’s half-brother, meaning they are the product of an incestual relationship.

Corrine is horse-whipped by Olivia in Malcolm’s presence; the wicked old man deriving an odd sexual pleasure from this humiliation. By night, Corrine returns to the attic, revealing to her children that her torture has bought them all valuable time to remain at Foxworth Hall, and quite possibly, inherit the estate upon Malcolm’s imminent death. At first, Corrine focuses her daily supplication on pleasing her dying father. By night, she returns to her children in the attic to relay the day’s events to them. However, as Malcolm begins to trust his daughter again, Corrine’s visits to the attic become less frequent. Concerned and rebellious, Chris and Cathy resist Olivia’s demands on them.  Olivia is convinced in her warped belief Chris and Cathy are lovers, echoing the romance between Corrine and her late uncle. Discovering the pair asleep in the same bed – fully clothed, mind you – Olivia flies into a rage and sadistically smashes Cathy’s ballerina.  On another occasion, Olivia finds Chris in conversation with Cathy while she bathes. Olivia attempts to barge in, but Chris gallantly defends his sister. Unfortunately, Olivia returns when Chris is not around, ambushes Cathy and accosts her with a pair of scissors, lopping off all of her beautiful blonde tresses.  Now, Olivia institutes a program of starvation. Cory falls ill and Chris is forced to feed his brother with his own blood.   

Chris and Cathy remove the hinges from their locked door and sneak out of the attic to procure them food. What they discover confirms their worst fears. Corrine has been indulging in a life of luxury, set up with Malcolm’s attorney, Bart Winslow, whom she is planning to marry. That evening, Corrine makes an impromptu visit to the attic, but is startled when Chris and Cathy do not buy her story about being delayed in her visits to secure their happy future together. Indeed, Cathy and Corrine nearly come to blows over her lies, and Corrine storms out of the attic, presumably, never to return. By now, Cory – half-starved, has fallen ill with fever. Pleading with Olivia and Corrine to take the boy to hospital, Corrine promises Cathy and Chris all will be well again. Cory is removed from their care and presumably taken to hospital. But only a short while later, Corrine returns to the attic to inform Chris and Cathy that Cory has died. The children are devastated. While they mourn the loss, Bloom’s camera cuts away to a nearby hillside where four freshly dug graves await; John Hall, burying Cory in the first open plot. Meanwhile, Chris discovers that the mouse Cory was keeping as a pet, having eaten part of one of the sugar cookies daily fed to the children at breakfast, has died of arsenic poisoning. Deducing Olivia is behind the murder, Chris and Cathy make plans to escape with Carrie. However, in attempting to steal some money for their journey, Chris learns Corrine will wed Winslow in a lavish house ceremony the next day. He returns to the attic and suggests their getaway would be better served, disguised in formal clothes from the attic, to disappear into the crowd.

The next morning, Olivia arrives with freshly baked, arsenic-tainted cookies to be fed to the children. Instead, Chris ambushes Olivia from behind, beating her unconscious with a bedpost. Believing Malcolm should be told the truth about their existence, Cathy is horrified when, in escaping the attic and exploring Malcolm’s bedroom, she and Chris find the bed dismantled and the old man gone. Indeed, they deduce Malcolm has been dead for months. They also discover a copy of Malcolm’s Will that is at least 2-months old, with a revealing clause: that, if it is ever discovered Corrine had children from her first marriage, she will remain disinherited for life. Unequivocally aware now, Corrine – not Olivia – is responsible for their suffrage and Cory’s death, Cathy is determined to crash the wedding and expose her mother as an unscrupulous fraud. Cathy, Chris and Carrie appear in the doorway as Corrine is preparing to take her vows with Winslow. He and the guests are repulsed when Cathy begins to explain the wickedness that has transpired.  Feigning ignorance, and refusing to even acknowledge her children as her own, Corrine cannot undue Cathy’s revelation. Chris reveals the particulars of Malcolm’s will, and then, produces Cory’s dead mouse as proof of their poisoning allegation. Cathy tries to force her mother to eat one of the arsenic-coated cookies meant for them. Corrine retreats to the balcony and is pushed by Cathy over its stone wall; her wedding veil becoming entangled in the wooden trellis below, leading to her strangulation. As Olivia bitterly looks on, Chris, Cathy and Carrie depart Foxworth Hall. We hear a voice-over narration from an older Cathy who explains how they managed to survive on their own. Chris became a doctor and Cathy resumed her dreams of becoming a dancer. We also learn that Carrie, while having survived, never entirely regained her health. Cathy contemplates whether Olivia is still alive, suggesting she might return to Foxworth Hall someday soon to re-claim the family’s fortune.

Despite its strong opening as the #3 movie in the country, Flowers in the Attic was received with general ambivalence by the critics. While some found Bloom’s direction weary, and the performances flat, the movie did respectable business and has since developed a cult following. There is little to deny Flowers in the Attic as a dark and brooding cult classic. Still, it never regains that redemptive quality that was found in the novel. Indeed, the finale in the movie is a real downer; Cathy’s revenge striking a sour and vindictive note, rather than a righteous blow for their freedom. While one cannot deny Bloom’s pacing as static, the fault is neither entirely his, nor even – perhaps – a flaw, as the methodical delivery of scenes, despite their glacial tempo, steadily builds to the ‘shocker’ finale. And one cannot discount Louise Fletcher’s bone-chilling performance as the purse-lipped religious fanatic with a piercing stare that could positively melt steel. Fletcher is a fine actress, and in very fine form here as the one-dimensional demigoddess, barely able to contain her venom for these children. We sincerely hate Olivia, and that’s a good thing, as few villains are as full of deliciously wicked menace and corrosive spite. Kristy Swanson and Jeb Stuart Adams make for an amiable pair of crime-solvers; a sort of Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew duo who have sincere on-screen chemistry in their favor. Swanson, in particular, conveys a sense of burgeoning contempt for Corrine to rival Olivia’s disdain toward her – a wonderfully complex duality of purpose at play. Adams is left with the part of the forthright boy on the cusp of manhood – a stock character, given a grade above the usual cut in young studs out to prove themselves with a display of cocky guts.  

The real ‘wet noodle’ here is mousy Victoria Tennant as the corrupted matriarch. Tennant seems incapable of inferring a more sinister premise afoot. She plays dowdy alright, but her grand finale, in which she denounces her own children as imposters, is embarrassingly second-rate melodrama, tinged with a flash of pouty regret. It doesn’t work and, in hindsight, one sincerely wishes Bloom had been able to cast the flashier/sexier Sharon Stone in her stead.  On a limited budget, cinematographers, Frank Byers and Gil Hubbs achieve an unsettling Gothic atmosphere that is palpably brooding. John Muto’s production design and Michele Starbuck’s set decoration yield some good things too, even if much of it gets diffused by Christopher Young’s oft silly and overwrought score. In the final analysis, Flowers in the Attic is far better than the ‘slow, stiff, stupid and senseless’ potboiler it was originally deemed as in the Washington Times.  While veering from Andrews’ novel in many respects, the movie manages to grip and possess its audience with some truly unnerving vignettes and, 32-years removed from its theatrical debut, remains a kitschy bit of darkly purposed 80’s drama that dangles, if never truly offering up the specter of genuine horror.

In the past, I have chastised Arrow Video for not offering video upgrades to their more recent releases, merely porting over existing 1080p transfers and padding them out with extras.  Flowers in the Attic is no exception, cribbing digital files that are at least a decade old and were already released by RLJ Media – now, a subsidiary of Acorn Entertainment. Properly framed in 1.85:1, the source here is nevertheless flawed and exhibits minor age-related wear and tear.  For the most part, the transfer captures at least the essence of Byers and Hubb’s soft-focus cinematography. But it suffers, intermittently from boosted grain levels and a hint of black crush, with slightly weaker than anticipated black levels in general. Blacks are more of a deeper gray than black. Whites, often appear slightly dirty or less than refined. The overall color palette is subdued, but flesh tones are nicely realized. The 2.0 DTS audio is adequate, but just – uncharacteristically strident in spots. Arrow has, again, padded out the extras to charge a premium for this release. Honestly, if they want to be considered in the niche ‘Criterion/Indicator’ market, they need to step up their game here too.

Kat Ellinger offers a new audio commentary. I have already stated my personal indifference to Ellinger as a commentator, as she infrequently tends to disregard finer details and back stories in favor of offering pure conjecture and opinion. This is a middling commentary track at best. Arrow has also given us newly recorded interviews with cinematographer, Frank Byers, production designer, John Muto, actor, Jeb Stuart Adams, and, composer, Christopher Young. Of interest to fans will be Bloom’s original ending, included, but alas, sourced from a very badly damaged Betamax tape. We also get the revised theatrical ending with commentary provided by Tony Kayden, who replaced Bloom as director for this sequence. Finally, there are copious behind-the-scenes stills, and, Arrow’s reversible sleeve, with original and new artwork commissioned by Haunt Love. This first pressing also comes with a collectible booklet, with reflections from Bryan Reesman. Bottom line: Flowers in the Attic remains a cornerstone in tween and twenty-something fiction. While the novel endures, the movie is its own anomaly – good, but not great, and, on this Blu-ray, given some bells and whistles, without a proper video upgrade. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

3