Flowers in the Attic

People use the color yellow to symbolize hope. Yellow, like the sun we rarely saw.

The chilling story of how a heartless mother, put her children away in an attic for her own selfish reasons is captivating and disturbing story from V.C Andrews. Well as of 2014 Lifetime made the book into a TV film.  Flowers in the Attic is a 1979 novel by V.C. Andrews. It is the first book in the Dollanganger Series, and was followed by Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The Lifetime movie is a remake of the Flowers in the Attic film from 1987, starring Louise Fletcher, Victoria Tennant, Kristy Swanson and Jeb Stuart Adams. The remake by Lifetime is eerily similar but without the same ending. Lifetime's ending gives room for the rest of the story to be told like in the book series. I first saw the 1987 version of Flowers in the Attic about 10 years ago! I found it to be playing on the TV and was interested, horrified, saddened and just outraged by all the pain those children suffered. I was thrilled to find that it was a book series and I went on to find the first book and read it. The first book has far more detail in it, as most books usually do than it's movie counter part. Its awful to see how the children's mother whisks them away to her familie's home with lies and false hopes of a fresh start.I won't give too much away because it's a good book series if you haven't read them and the same goes for the movies. Please read the books, there's so much detail in the books that are left out from the movies. The remake 2014 of Flowers in the Attic stars Kiernan Shipka, Ellen Burstyn, Mason Dye, and Heather Grahm.

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Flowers in the Attic 1987

  Flowers in the Attic 2014
The story starts off with the sudden death of the children's father Christopher, the four children, Chris jr., Cathy and the 5-year-old twins Cory and Carrie. Their mother Corinne, reveals that they are penniless and forced to travel with their mother Corinne to live with her wealthy parents. Corinne informs her children that there has been tension between herself and her parents for many years, but does not elaborate and simply says they had cut her out of their lives for something she had done of which they disapproved. The children trust her since she is their mother and they rely on her for care and love. The children and their mother travel in the shadows of night to Foxworth Hall. When they arrive they are greeted by their cold grandmother, who immediately eyes them with disgust and hostility. On their first day there that the grandmother reveals the shocking truth of what caused Corrine to be disowned years ago: Corinne and her husband were really uncle and niece, making their love incestuous and their children the product of incest. Corinne's mother, Olivia forces Corinne to show her children that she has been savagely bullwhipped by her as a punishment for her incestuous relationship and having children from the union. She doesn't hold any venmnous words, she has no problem calling her own grandchildren evil. As the days in their imprisonment, the children begin to see less and less of their mother and grain more harsher treatment from their grandmother. The on a holiday party Chris and Cathy sneek downstairs, shocked to find their mother dressed up and attneing a party as if nothing from her past lingered, including her children. When Corinne finds out her older children were downstairs, she is enraged. She threatens them both and slaps Chris before storming out. The twins begin to look pale, as do Cathy and Chris. They are weaker, and sickly. The attribute it to the fact they are being locked up in the attic, and only eating whatever is brought to them by their grandmother. Cory as a result of their imprisonment gets extremely sick and is taken away by their mother to the hospital, where he dies according to their mother. In their time alone Cathy and Chris begin to be drawn to each other in a way that is more than brother and sister...following in the footsteps of their parents.On another trip to the main level of the house they are once again shocked to learn that their grandmother has probably been poisoning them, their grandfather has died, and their mother has remarried and left them at the hands of their grandmother. Driven by desperation they escape after a run in with their grandmother and leave on foot.