Flowers in the Attic Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Flowers in the Attic Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 7, 2018

In our recently published King of Hearts Blu-ray review, I mentioned “what were they thinking?” in terms of the musical adaptation of Carrie that has become a Holy Grail of sorts for lovers of flop musicals. And kind of like in Carrie, Flowers in the Attic features a religiously obsessive mother who is prone to bouts of both zeal and abuse. However, if anyone ever asks “what were they thinking?” about Flowers in the Attic (which has to the best of my knowledge not been musicalized — yet), there could be a whole litany of reasons for the query, not necessarily relegated to the harridan figure portrayed by Louise Fletcher in the film. As even Kat Ellinger mentions on a number of occasions during her commentary included on this Blu-ray as a supplement, the people making the film adaptation of V.C. Andrews’ patently bizarre best seller didn’t seem to have a secure handle on what the point of the story was. Is Flowers in the Attic a thriller? A mystery? A murder story? A revenge tale? Some kind of bizarre allegory? Depending on your point of view, and/or whatever snippet of the film you may be viewing when you decide to come to a conclusion, your answer could quite easily be “yes”, “no” or “maybe”. As perhaps evidenced by another couple of supplements included on this release, namely an original and revised ending, there seemed to be some confusion about how exactly to approach this weird tale about family dysfunctions, one that at least hints at incest (especially in the source novel) and malevolent poisoning among other "little" peccadilloes.

While I’m referring interested readers to my colleague Michael Reuben’s Flowers in the Attic Blu-ray review of the Image Entertainment Blu-ray released for the United States market, since Michael deals both with some of the history of the project, but also its kinda sorta salacious content, I can’t help but comment on a couple of elements. As Michael mentions, the film “tiptoes up to the edge of the story's riskier sexual themes but never quite plunges in”, but it also remains a viscerally weird viewing experience nonetheless. Even early on, before the paterfamilias of the Dollanganger family dies, there’s tons of subtext involved, not the least of which is a a group of main characters that looks it was spawned by a fever dream of Adolf Hitler imagining what the perfect Aryan family would look like. As Kat Ellinger mentions in her commentary, an early scene of the father gifting daughter Cathy (Kristy Swanson) with a china ballerina figure is virtually bursting at the seams with unspoken (sexual) energy, and it’s the start of several such scenes between different family members (to say more might spoil some of the plot’s more titillating aspects).

But once the film segues to the family manse owned by Cathy’s grandmother Olivia Foxworth (Louise Fletcher), there are a whole host of questions which the film never even tries to delve into, let alone develop and/or answer. Passing allusions to a frenzied religiosity on the part of Olivia run rampant through the film, and yet a foundational motivation of why she’s so dang blasted mean to everyone isn’t really well detailed, even given a supposedly shocking revelation part way through the film as to the marriage between Cathy’s deceased father and her mother Corrinne (Victoria Tennant). Even less explained is the whole foundational underpinning of the film, and the reason for its (metaphorical?) title, namely that once Corrinne and her brood of extremely blonde children arrive at the Foxworth estate, Olivia insists that all of the children must be confined to the upper room of the home.

For these and a host of other reasons (some of which Michael details in his review), Flowers in the Attic is kind of unforgettable in its own “train wreck” sort of way. The film would have done much better in my not so humble opinion had it really gone for the gusto in terms of V.C. Andrews’ original formulation (something that evidently the Lifetime made for television version, which I haven’t seen, did). Instead, the viewer is left to infer all sorts of information about these characters, all while things get progressively closer to Grand Guignol territory for no apparent reason, leading to a poisoning subplot which in turn gives way to a fairly ludicrous climax (one appended to the film after principal shooting, as is dealt with in both the commentary and some of the other supplements detailing the differences between the two endings). Fletcher seems to be having a field day with what is really a one note character, but some of the other performances seem to flounder a bit, perhaps because the actors were as confused as anyone else involved behind the scenes as to what exactly the point of Flowers in the Attic was supposed to be.

Flowers in the Attic Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Flowers in the Attic is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains only the following fairly generic verbiage about the transfer:

FLowers in the Attic is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with stereo 2.0 sound [sic]. The restored HD master was produced by Lakeshore Entertainment.

Without anything else to go on, and judging by a comparison of the screenshots included with the review of the U.S. release, this looks very similar if not absolutely identical to the United States release. Again, judging solely by screenshots (never a foolproof strategy), it looks like the grain field is somewhat better revealed, or at least more noticeable, on the Arrow release, something that may actually tend to mask fine detail levels in the many dimly lit or downright dark scenes. As Michael mentions in his review of the U.S. release, a lot of the film is kind of drenched in a dewy, gauzy atmosphere that is intentionally soft, and so fine detail levels in midrange and wider shots tend to be minimal at best. The palette is a bit on the cool side, again at least partially by design. As Michael mentioned in his U.S. review, blacks here tend to be a bit on the milky side, and in fact I found contrast throughout the entire presentation to be a little anemic. There are occasional minor signs of age related wear and tear, but no compression issues of any import.

Flowers in the Attic Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Flowers in the Attic features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track (the info above lists stereo, but the film was released in mono and if there's stereo separation here, it's negligible to my ears). One of the undeniable pluses to this film is Christopher Young's rather ravishing score (Michael mentions that David Shire was evidently considered at one point), and it sounds great in this presentation, with especially warm sounding strings. Dialogue is also clearly and cleanly presented and there are no issues with distortion, dropouts or other damage.

Flowers in the Attic Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Kat Ellinger is quite enjoyable, given that Ellinger is evidently a V.C. Andrews and Flowers in the Attic aficionado, but I have to say I find her just a trifle hard to understand at times.


• Home, Sweet Home (HD; 8:26) is an interview with cinematographer Frank Byers.


• Fear and Wonder (HD; 13:45) is an interview with production designer John Muto.


• The Devil's Spawn (HD; 13:41) is an interview with Jeb Stuart Adams, who portrays Chris in the film.


• Innocence Shattered (HD; 9:33) is an interview with composer Christopher Young.


• Original Ending (HD; 7:53) is sourced off a Betamax master, as detailed in a brief (00:16) opening explanation.


• Revised Ending with Commentary (HD; 10:43) features Tony Kayden.


• Production Gallery (HD; 4:51)


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 1:37)

As usual, Arrow has also provided a nicely appointed insert booklet.

Flowers in the Attic Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"What were they thinking?" indeed. As an old ad campaign used to say, "Only her hairdresser knows for sure," but I have a feeling in this case the entire crew, including even Craft Services folks, was probably confounded by what they were seeing on the set of Flowers in the Attic. The film itself is a bit of a mess, but for fans this Arrow release at least has a number of interesting supplements, unlike the bare bones version Image Entertainment put out for the United States market.