Flowers In The Attic (1987)

OCTOBER 7, 2007

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: CABLE (TMC HD)

I saw Flowers in the Attic when I was like eight, and remembered only one thing. “Eat the cookie! EAT THE COOKIE MOTHER!” Why that stuck with me, I don’t know. Maybe because I also eat cookies. But that’s all I remembered, I didn’t even recall that Kristy Swanson played the girl who said that “classic” line.

Apparently the book had a great deal of incest between the older brother and sister, which was dropped from the film. But I think there’s still certainly enough left. The father gives Swanson (his daughter) a gift that sounds more like a proposal (saying “I only live to see you happy” or something as he hands her a ring), and the brother takes his time helping her wash her back. There’s also another bath scene where he’s talking to her, and yet she only feels compelled to cover herself when their grandmother walks in. And we find out early on that their father was actually their mother’s uncle. Hey-o!!!

The score by Christopher Young is pretty good, but wildly inappropriate a lot of the time. There’s a scene where they are trying to climb a rope down the side of the house to escape, yet the music has more of a “Montage of writing love letters to an overseas lover” feel to it. Young of course did Hellraiser, and is the subject of a hilarious story about Danny Elfman and Sam Raimi falling out during the post production of Spider-Man 2. Google it sometime, you won’t be disappointed. It involves pod people.

I’d like to point out the complete idiocy of the brother character in this film. His little brother is so weak that he needs to cut open his vein and feed the little sod some of his blood (yep, incest AND vampirism!), yet when he finds a way to escape the room they are locked in for whatever (however long they’re in there for is never made clear – it could be years but the director keeps putting a desk calendar in frame that’s always on May 27th), he spends all his time looking at clothes and bedrooms instead of going to the goddamn kitchen and securing a sandwich or two. Fucktard.

I can’t tell if this movie is pro-religion or not either. One would certainly suspect that the writer believes that being devoted to the teachings of the bible leads you to be a total bitch like Louise Fletcher (did this broad EVER play a sympathetic person?), but the kids also find hope in some Bible passages. Where is the line drawn?

...I’m probably putting too much thought into a Kristy Swanson movie.

What say you?

2 comments:

  1. I loved this movie as a kid. When I was like eleven, I loved this movie and Sleepers, with Kevin Bacon.

    ... I was sort of a messed up kid.

    Eat it, Mother! Is definitely in my top ten best movie quotes ever.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Way late to the party, as usual.

    This movie is a barebones attempt at cashing in on a bestseller novel. So much in this movie is unexplained (why couldn't he go down to the kitchen? because they were locked in. later on in the book he fashions a key and DOES go out).

    And also (SPOILER FOR THE BOOK SERIES) it turns out the mother and father were actually half-siblings.

    I can't ever defend this movie, but I can defend the book and what it should have been as a movie.

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