Flowers in the Attic

A sharper creepy TV movie.

If you dwell too much on the plot, you’ll fall into a chasm of disbelief.... Flowers doesn’t look like a Lifetime film, and that’s a compliment. The production moves at a brisk pace, and unlike the children’s predicament, never feels claustrophobic.

The whole enterprise is alternately laughable and affecting without committing the eighth deadly sin of being boring.

Perhaps, because it was unwilling to risk becoming camp, this Flowers can’t achieve the necessary passion, either--Corinne’s viciousness is lost in the shuffle, and volatile Cathy and confused Christopher remain sketches of real characters, whose love never becomes the lifelong connection that takes them by surprise and desperately rushes them toward freedom.

Despite the seemingly substantial production budget, there are moments of howlingly bad special effects.... But the real problem is the movie’s lack of lust.

It does what it sets out to do: that is, adapt the book faithfully and still make an entertaining film.