Flowers in the Attic

Incestuous desires run rampant in the original novel by VC Andrews, but all the movie has to offer is soft-focus innuendo. As fantasy stripped of all its metaphorical trimmings, the sublimely ridiculous plot is more likely to reduce an audience to laughter than to tears. Read full review

Driven by cliches and almost completely ignoring the psychological growth of the children coping with the loss of their parents, it doesn't take long for this to descent into meaningless schlock. Read full review

Flowers in the Attic is a protracted exercise in morbidity, relieved only by moments of ludicrousness. In adapting Andrews' Gothic chiller, writer-director Jeffrey Bloom tries hard to establish an eerie fairy-tale-gone-sour mood, yet fails to work up the credibility necessary to sustain it. The result is a real turnoff. [20 Nov 1987, p.32]