After the death of their father, teenagers Chris (Jeb Stuart Adams) and Cathy (Kristy Swanson),the twins Cory and Carrie, and their mother Corrine Dollanganger (Victoria Tennant) are forced to return to her parents' home. Their religious grandparents Malcolm and Olivia Foxworth (Louise Fletcher) had disinherited their mother a long time ago but she intends to win back her inheritance. The kids are locked away in the attic. Olivia reveals that their father is actually their mother's uncle. Even their mother visits them less and less as time goes on.

There are changes from the book but none of them actually makes the movie better. It's questionable that the book would make a great movie anyways. I think it's possible to turn it into a good horror movie. Also the movie probably needs a mystery to be revealed. Olivia reveals the secret right away. It's a bland telling that hints at something more sexualized. It isn't thrilling or scary. The dialog is a bit clunky. The actors seem able but the script just isn't willing.

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...

While I have not read the book, I sincerely hope it is not as bad as this film (though, after reading "Twilight", I know that you do not need to be a good writer to sell millions of copies). Absolutely terrible dialogue litters this film, and it is poorly delivered, only exacerbating this shortcoming.

Another script was written by Wes Craven, but was turned down because of the violence and incest. I would much rather watch his version (this one all but removes the incest subplot that made the original novel so controversial). At least horror fans still have the music of Christopher Young ("Hellraiser") to listen to.

Apparently the sequel was to be "all sex" but never got off the ground. The bigger mystery is: where is the remake? A book this successful that made a critically-failed movie? That is a perfect excuse to give it another go. By now, Kristy Swanson is old enough to play the mother...

It seems that about 90% of Louise Fletcher's roles after "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" were retreads of Nurse Ratched, and Jeffrey Bloom's "Flowers in the Attic" is no exception. She plays the psychotic grandmother of some children who move into her house with their mother after their father's death. But as time goes by, it starts looking as if the mom might not be much better.

Fletcher makes her role chilling, but the presence of Victoria Tennant makes it hard to take this seriously as a thriller. You see, Tennant was married to Steve Martin for some years and co-starred with him in "All of Me" and "LA Story". Even as her character grew more and more hostile, I kept expecting Steve Martin to enter the scene as the wild and crazy guy. The other main cast member is Kristy Swanson, whose best known movie role is the title character in the completely brainless "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

And then there's the comparison to the book. Prior to watching the movie I had never even heard of V.C. Andrews, let alone known that she'd written a series of books about unpleasant families. I did read that they changed a number of things from the book. In the end, this mostly ends up looking like one of those movies only memorable for the bizarre cast that they assembled (others include "Hurry Sundown" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told").