The Flower at Attic is a 1987 psychological 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.
At one point Wes Craven was scheduled to direct the film, and he even completed the script script. However, the producers were distracted by his approach to the incestuous story, and Jeffrey Bloom finally wrote and organized the task.
Video Flowers in the Attic (1987 film)
Plot
After the sudden death of their father, four children - teenagers Chris and Cathy and 5-year-old twins Cory and Carrie - found themselves unlucky and forced to travel with their mother Corrine to live with her rich parents (the children have not found or not previously notified). Corrine told his children that there had been a tension between him and his parents for years, but did not elaborate and simply said that they had taken his life for something he had approved. The boys believed it, though Cathy was skeptical when she wondered what was happening that caused a rift between her mother and her parents.
Mrs. Corrine, Olivia, a religious fanatic, took her daughter and her children into her home, despite the harsh conditions that children should be kept in a locked room so that her dying husband Malcolm would never know they were. For that reason, children are closed in a bedroom in the mansion, with access only to the loft mansion via a secret staircase. On their first day there, their grandmother revealed the shocking truth about what caused Corrine not recognized and forgotten by her father a few years ago: Corrine's husband is really her uncle, her father's half-brother, making their love incest and their children an incest product. When Corrine finally returned to the children that night, he was forced to show the children that he had been cruelly bitten by his mother as punishment for his marriage with his uncle and had children from the union. Corrine confesses to the children that he and their father are nephews and uncles, and his parents are angry because they believe Corrine embarrasses the family; the children did not say anything but seemed to accept it. Corrine told the children that her parents made it clear that if she had a child by her uncle she would be deprived, but since her father did not know about them, she still had a chance to earn money when she died. He says that their confinement will only be for a short time: his father is seriously ill, and once he is able to convince him to get his inheritance, they will be free and they will leave.
The plot focuses on the trials of children as silencing and clashes with their ultra-religious grandmother, who hates children for their incestuous conception. Children struggle to survive, even when their mother's visit quickly declines. In particular, Olivia becomes obsessed with Chris and Cathy, from a misguided belief that they have become lovers and repeat the same incest actions as Corrine and her uncle. Finding them sleeping in the same bed one morning, the grandmother destroyed the ballerina box of Cathy, given to her by her deceased father. After Olivia later found two innocent people talking while Cathy was bathing, she called them sinners. Chris manages to throw her out, but Olivia then snatches Cathy up in the bedroom, locks Chris in the closet that precedes the attic, and breaks her hair with scissors. He then starves for a week, and Chris is forced to feed Cory his own blood so he does not starve to death.
Over time, children often get sick, especially Cory and Carrie. Chris and Cathy managed to quietly remove the hinges from the locked doors on several occasions to sneak out of their rooms, and discovered that their mother had lived a lavish life and dating a young lawyer, Bart Winslow. He finally comes to visit them again, and they confront him about not visiting them again and leaving them to suffer at the hands of their grandmother. Corrine is very defensive and acts humiliated, crying that they are cruel to think that he deliberately ignore them or enjoy life while they are locked up, then storms out. Shortly after, Cory became a deadly pain. The boys asked Olivia and Corrine to take Cory to the hospital, which they did, but then Corrine came back to tell them that Cory had died. The children are destroyed, but not long after they find the pet rats they are found dead after eating part of the unfinished Cory cake, raises suspicion at Chris and he investigates the cookies. Chris researched and found that Cory and their mice were killed through arsenic poisoning, mixed with sugar on a cake served with breakfast, and they believed their grandmother had poisoned them. The remaining siblings decide to leave the attic once and for all.
Chris slips out to steal the money before they run away and find that their mother plans to marry Bart Winslow in the mansion the next morning. Though annoyed, he suggested to Cathy that they were dressed in fancy dress from the attic, and used the wedding as a cover to sneak out of the house. When Olivia secretly enters their bedroom the next day, hoping to catch them once again doing something "evil", Chris shocks her and knocks her unconscious with a bedpost. When they leave, Cathy, does not want her mother to go with what she does to them and let them suffer by the hands of their grandmother, tells Chris that they need to find their grandfather and tell the truth so Corrine will lose her inheritance; they find him sleeping in his room once before going out and investigating their mother's absence. However, when they enter his room, they find him empty, with the bed unloaded: their grandfather has died for months. They also found a copy of his two-month will, revealing a clause stating that if ever disclosed, Corrine had children from his first marriage, even after his death, he would be deprived and lose all his money. They realize that Corrine is the one who poisoned the cookies, not their grandmother, and their mother tried to kill them all so that no one knew about their existence and guaranteed her inheritance.
Children crash wedding ceremonies and expose their mothers to guests and grooms; Corrine refuses to acknowledge the children as her own children, and Cathy and Chris scold their mothers for saying that she will come to pick them up after her father died, but breaking promises when she dies, and Chris reveals that they found a will recently and telling him he knows nobody can find out about them or he will lose everything, even after his father's death. Corrine denied it, then Chris showed everyone the dead mouse, proving that he was trying to kill them all, succeeding with Cory, when a new will was made. Cathy demanded to know why her mother did these horrible things to them and offered her mother an arsenic-covered cake as a wedding present, and angrily tried to force her mother to eat it, chasing her to the balcony. After a brief struggle, Corrine accidentally fell and died. Afterwards, the children leave the mansion when their grandmother looks with a scorn; the narrator (Cathy's older voiceover) explains that the children survive on their own, Chris goes to medical school and becomes a doctor, Cathy gets a job and starts dancing again, though Carrie "never really healthy". She wonders aloud if her grandmother is alive, anticipating Cathy's return to finally claiming family wealth.
Maps Flowers in the Attic (1987 film)
Cast
Production
Pre-production
V. C. Andrews himself demanded and, finally, got the script approval when he sold his film rights to producers Thomas Fries and Sy Levin. He rejected five texts (violent and graphic scenarios by Wes Craven rejected by the producers, though), before choosing a script by Jeffrey Bloom, who would also direct. Clearly, Bloom's script is one of the closest to the novel, but, since he has no full control over the film issue, many producers and two studios forcibly make changes in scripts, thus removing many points of plot and novel themes, including the incest oldest brother. Bloom says there is a lot of conflict in production but can not do anything to talk to the producers of the many drastic changes made in the script.
Originally, Bloom wanted David Shire to print the film, but Christopher Young was chosen by the producers.
Casting
Veteran actress Louise Fletcher and Victoria Tennant each played Grandmother and Mother, while the four children were played by newcomers Kristy Swanson, Jeb Stuart Adams, Ben Ryan Ganger and Lindsay Parker. Swanson once claimed when V.C. Andrews met him, he told Swanson as he had imagined Cathy.
Being a fairly low budget production, Bloom says, big names are not considered for any role in the film. Jeffrey Bloom has a young Sharon Stone audition for the movie, but he can not convince the producer to give him a part of Corrine, the mother.
Filming
Louise Fletcher wants to go deep into her role, so she calls Andrews one night to inquire about her character's motivation in the movie. She's also so in the part, that she stays in Grandma's character all the time, even when she does not shoot. "I can not let myself think about what kind of distractions a beautiful day or what we'll have for lunch?" he said in an interview.
Andrews was also given a cameo as a maid at Foxworth Hall, scrubbing the windows after Chris and Cathy tried to escape from the roof. Anne Patty, present in the filming of the Andrews scene, says that her piece is a metaphor. "The author is the one who cleans the window so readers can see clearly into the life of the character".
Bloom claims that, after filming, the producers approached him to film a new ending, and one of many ideas was that the siblings accidentally killed Corinne during their escape. Bloom tries to lure them out and when he can not convince them, he finally stops. The new end, partly inspired by the ending of Wes Craven's own scenario, was finally filmed by others.
Castle Hill, a Tudor Revival house in Ipswich, Massachusetts serves as Foxworth Hall and is a prime location where almost all the interior and exterior scenes are filmed. The initial scene shows the children walking towards the front of the house after being taken down by the bus. In fact the bus stop is at the end of a rolling green where the lawn ends and the ocean begins. The last scene of the film in which Cathy pushed her mother Corrine off the balcony and her wedding veil was caught on a trellis, strangling her to death, filmed at Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, California.
Postproduction
Jeffrey Bloom is not involved in the final editing of the movie, as he has left the set, and the new end is entered. He also claims, regarding a scene involving incest between Chris and Cathy, the scene is indeed cut.
The original cut of Bloom's original film was screened for a test audience in December 1986 in San Fernando Valley and met with a negative reaction, largely because of the incest scene between Cathy and Chris. The test audience, comprised mostly of female teenagers (the same demographic as the targeted book series), was reported on the test card that they were rebuked by the scene and others where Corrine took off the cloak in front of her father to be flogged by her mother. They also disliked the original ending in which Louise Fletcher's character tried to kill the children with a butcher knife because they felt "too horrible".
The producers insist on a new end because they think that the audience for the movie will want to see the kids take revenge on Corrine, so an unknown director is brought in to film a new suffix where Corrine dies (despite the fact that his character lives in the first three books in the series), but the scene was filmed with a double stunt Victoria Tennant since the actress refused to film the scene and leave the set. While the rest of the film was filmed in Massachusetts, a new ending was filmed in California. After a severe movie rerun, which was done not only to remove "sensitive content" but also to make it shorter to secure the theater playback, as well as the newly famous late additions that writer and director Jeffrey Bloom hated and refused to film, the film was again screened into test audience in January 1987. This version was greeted with more positive feedback and was the version that was finally released in theaters. Due to the drastic editing, the film was pushed back to November from its original release in March, almost a year later after Bloom's original pieces were completed and tests were screened.
One scene removed from the final piece of the film was shown in a TV program that included behind-the-scenes film production. This was an extended scene from when Chris and Cathy entered Corrine's bedroom. It shows Cathy going about the room wondering why there are no photos of Corrine's children or her husband indoors. Another deleted scene was shown being filmed where Corrine and grandmother confronted each other after Cory's death and grandmother was shown smiling, indicating that she was involved in Cory's funeral.
According to Bloom in a 2010 interview, nudity and incest cut scenes are not done solely because of negative feedback from test audiences but also because studios and producers want to secure lower rankings. It gets to the point where even "small shots and suggestive little things" are cut off to ensure that the film is rated PG-13 from the MPAA.
Kristy Swanson also confirmed in a 2014 interview that there is a screening test that has all incest scenes included, but when the audience finds them uncomfortable, they are cut off. Producer Sy Levin also mentioned that one of the cut scenes had watched Chris Cathy through the crack of the door as she undressed and went into the tub. Also, screening tests in San Jose and Ohio, after re-editing, are said to include other alternative endings but no further details are reported. According to the LA Times interview (at the time the film was released in theaters) with actor Alex Koba who acted as a John Hall butler, as in Andrews novel, his character also has a much larger role in the original script and also provides a surprise twist plot key. After some rewrites, his character was greatly reduced and had only one line of dialogue in all the films, "Good evening Mr. Winthrop", and the butler became little more than a dark, gloomy figure who was peddling the carts back and forth across the screen. And the plots are gone. Koba also said about the final versions for the movie: "They have three different endings for the movie, and they pick the worst, which you see now." In another, the previous article also mentions that Bloom's original intended end is very similar to the ending of the original book, and that includes children just walking out of their dungeon prison into the sunlight during the wedding, to symbolize growing, Bloom said, with "the path to clear freedom." It is not known whether the final version is included only in Bloom's original script, or whether it was actually filmed and is the second ending alternative shown in some tests. Although interested in fans, no movie versions are not released, nor is Bloom's original cut, and it is unknown whether the deleted recordings still exist.
According to Bloom, the original ending looks like this:
"Briefly, the surviving children disrupt the marriage ceremony and dramatically confront Corrine, and everyone in the audience is horrified by what the children say about how their mother confined them and poisoned them." The groom is shocked without words The grandmother was angry, his grandfather was there, in his wheelchair, to hear it all, Corrine denied it all, but it did not matter, it was too late, the children's story was supported by the fact that they looked half dead They left the marriage but before leaving my grandmother's house tried to attack them [with a big knife], they were rescued by John Hall, the butler, grandma was comforted by him and the children were gone. "
Reception
Critical reception
The film received most of the negative reviews from critics and fans of the book, who both did not like the slow motion of film, acting, and the change of the film's flow. It currently holds a 13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 8 reviews. Variety commented that "VC Andrews's novel incest and limited periods of childhood have always been outstanding candidates for film care, but director Jeffrey Bloom has taken the narrative and squeezed life out of him." The show is as rigid and gloomy as a loft of children, imprisoned in ". Richard Harrington of The Washington Post said of the time that "it is slow, rigid, stupid and unreasonable, a film that is completely lacking in motivation, development, and nuance, and further undermined by acting and directing shameful flat". TV Guide rated the movie on one of four stars and mentioned that "the novel of the Andrews movie version is very tame and really boring". Time Out London states that "as a fantasy stripped of all the metaphoric ornaments, that very silly plot tends to reduce the audience to laughter rather than cry"
Recent reviews are a bit more diverse; A review published in 2012 on the Basement Rejects website gave the film four and a half stars out of ten and stated that "The flowers in the Attic are in a very bad category.This rumbles, on the edge only bad, but has a little nuance kitsch. "March 2018 review for the Cinemas Fringes website at the upcoming release of Arrow Films Blu-ray movie is somewhat more favorable where it is more critical of acting, but mentions that" Flowers in the Attic is a movie with many problems but still diverting as part of the nostalgia of the 1980s ". The film received positive reviews on the Cinematic Addiction website, where he was praised for his acting, direction and music and said that "The interest in Attic is a good movie.This is certainly not a movie for everyone - it deals with some very annoying themes - but this is an effective film ".
box office
The film debuted at No. 3.
Awards and nominations
The film's acceptance by fans of the book and criticism were mostly negative, but Kristy Swanson won the Young Artist Award in 1989 for her role as Cathy Dollanganger, while in 1988 Louise Fletcher was nominated for the Saturn Award for her performance as Grandma.
Sequel
According to Kristy Swanson herself, a sequel to the movie adaptation based on the sequel, Petals on the Wind , has been planned but ultimately never reached production. Again, Fries Entertainment will produce the sequel and the script is written by Mark David Perry. The film will be based on the same storyline of the sequel novel, with the exception of the lack of Corinne Foxworth characters since he was murdered in the original film.
Kristy Swanson agreed to do the part once more but she was never contacted again about the film after she sent the script: "I was sent a script on Petals on the Wind and never took off... I remember running to Louise Fletcher in Santa Barbara about four years ago.He asked me if I got the Petals on the Wind script, which I had, and she wanted to know if I had read I told her that I had been and that they had called me about it I was interested but then I did not hear from them again And it turns out the same thing happened with him It seems they want to do it but they can not do it "I do not understand. When I read the script, I did not really like it. I know Cathy read a lot of things in the next book, and the script is really "sexfest." She is pregnant and has so much to do. There's his brother, Christopher, and then he's having an affair with Julian, a dancer, and there's Paul, the doctor. Actually I'm kinda wondering if I should do like equel, you know? I just do not know if it should be done. "
More adaptations
Another adaptation of Flowers in the Attic was aired on the Lifetime network on January 18, 2014, starring Heather Graham as Corrine, Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn as Olivia, and Kiernan Shipka and Mason Dye as Cathy and Christopher. Producer Meredith Finn stated that the remake of the film remained much more correct for this book than its predecessor with the controversial incest storyline remaining intact.
A sequel to a television series based on the next series of books, Petals on the Wind , was shown on the Lifetime network on May 26, 2014. In contrast to the book, the film jumps the next ten years from events Flowers . It stars Rose McIver as Cathy, Wyatt Nash as Christopher, replacing Kiernan Shipka and Mason Dye from previous films, respectively, and Will Kemp as Julian Marquet, with Heather Graham as Corrine and Ellen Burstyn as Olivia Foxworth. Production for the film begins on February 25, 2014, in Los Angeles.
Home media
In the United States, Flowers in the Attic was first released in VHS format. Anchor Bay Entertainment later acquired the home distribution rights and released the film on video on October 3, 1997. This was followed by a DVD from Anchor Bay on April 10, 2001 containing a new version of the remaster presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85: 1, the original Mono audio track in Dolby Digital, and, the theater trailer. On September 20, 2011, Interest in Attic was made available on DVD through Image Entertainment as part of their "Midnight Madness Series". Image Entertainment released the film for the first time on Blu-ray in the US on September 9, 2014.
In the UK, the film received a VHS release from Cinema Club on January 26, 2000. The film is available on DVD three times, first from Cinema Club on June 7, 2004, then, from Anchor Bay Entertainment on February 21, 2005, and finally, from the distribution company budget Boulevard Entertainment. Interest at Attic received a Blu-ray release in the UK on March 12, 2018 via Arrow Films in the most definitive version to date; set of special edition contains original aspect ratio 1.85: 1, English LCPM 2.0 audio track, English subtitle SDH, various specials, including player and crew interviews, audio commentary, original ending, original theatrical footage, and more. This set also contains original and newly created original artwork, and a collection book only available in the first printing.
See also
- Psycho-biddy
References
External links
- Interest in Attic on IMDb
- Interest in Attic at Rotten Tomatoes
- Flower in Attic in Box Office Mojo
- Complete VC. Andrews
- Interest in Attic (2014) on IMDb
- Petals on the Wind (2014) on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments