The FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC Nostalgia Thread

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 4/27/12 at 7:29pm

With the kids today all about the TWILIGHT, I think its time to re-live the phenom of the 80's Clearasil years.

Why, back in MY day, our dewy polyester-gothic heroines got some action, unlike that locked-kneed Bella! Okay, it was with her own brother, but still...
Vulture.com: How does it hold up?

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 4/27/12 at 8:21pm

I admit that on numerous occasions I have gotten halfway through the movie and been too freaked out to finish it. Louise Fletcher was much scarier in this than she was in Cuckoo's Nest.

[danmag]

Posted: 4/27/12 at 8:23pm

Oh how I loved this series! I haven't thought of these books in years!

[strummergirl]

Posted: 4/27/12 at 10:04pm

I am trying to think of how the subject matter would sell today. Would people be too icked out by the incest or would people indulge in it? Think about the Catherine/Chris fan-fiction, the movie adaptations of the whole series than the one film, and finally, those movies edited down to the most lurid 3+ minutes of Catherine/Chris macking to angst-filled contemporary pop songs. I only think this because internet shippers for TV shows make me believe that this is entirely possible.

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 4/27/12 at 10:12pm

Tumblr would have a field day!

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 4/28/12 at 9:37am

I adore this film and book

[jasonf]

Posted: 4/28/12 at 11:55am

Now we have Cersei and Jaime Lannister...

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/28/12 at 12:42pm

I think I was in 7th grade the first time I read them. It was when the prequel (that was ghostwritten and contradicts half of what is to come in the next books) "Garden of Shadows" came out. I love them in all their campy, smutty glory.

I also have a musical version I was attempting to write in junior high somewhere. "Think of all the treasures/We'll find at Foxworth Hall/Experiencing pleasures/My darling Catherine Doll." I still think there's a market for an adolescent incest musical!

[StockardFan]

Posted: 4/28/12 at 1:26pm

Loved those books! I might have to re-read them.

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 4/28/12 at 6:59pm

I never read that series, but I did read the Cutler family one that began with Dawn. Plenty of incest, again, though in that series it seemed to be that all the incest scenes were also rape scenes, and the true "love" moments were between characters who grew up thinking they were brother and sister, but were not really.

It's kind of amazing how few genetic problems existed in these characters' lives, considering their family trees were pretty much straight lines.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/28/12 at 8:09pm

Great article--loved the mention of those classic "window" covers.

Wes Craven was meant to do the film at one point and his script is floating out there on the internet. It takes even more liberties with the book than the finished film did, but also sounds much more interesting. As it is, despite Fletcher, the film plays like a dull tv movie with little of the incest and other scandalous subject matter that made the novels a hit in the first place.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 4/29/12 at 12:28pm

When I was in Seattle in the late nineties, there was a BRILLIANT stage spoof called DE-FLOWERED IN THE ATTIC. The highlight was when Catherine and Christopher finally got it on...an athletic, position-changing roundelay all set to a Foreigner medley. Unforgettable.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/29/12 at 3:04pm

That sounds perfect.

[ComingUpRoses2]

Posted: 5/9/12 at 7:43pm

I've been wanted to adapt this series for a few years now. Saw the movie as a kid on Tv, loved it, and re-discovered it in high school. It's campy, trashy, bizarre, but above all, very heartbreaking. The film version certainly got the fairy tale-esque tone right, but the whole thing (minus Fletcher) was horribly cast.

I'd like to see a remake that followed the book a little better. Chloe Moretz might make a good Cathy and Michelle Pfeiffer or Elizabeth Banks could be a great Corrine.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/9/12 at 10:05pm

Watch out, Tim Burton may be angling to remake this next...

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 12:35am

Helena Bonham Carter for The Grandmother!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 12:46am

Poor Virginia.




Poor, poor Virginia.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 12:48am

Aw, Virgie, gone to that great big attic in the sky.

[tazber]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 6:14am

I love the movie. Fletcher still scares me.

How many books did V.C. Andrews write in this series?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 4:03pm

She wrote four. The fifth one, a prequel called "Garden of Shadows," has her name on it, but I believe the vast majority of it was written by Andrew Neiderman, who ghost wrote a whole bunch of other books under her name after her death. "Shadows" isn't a bad book, but it contradicts a bit of stuff that happens in the other books.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 5:25pm

She also wrote the standalone "My Sweet Audrina," which was published in between books 3 and 4 of the first series (the Dollenganger Series), and the first two books of the second series (the Casteel series), "Heaven" and "Dark Angel." She had also sketched out the rest of the Casteel series before she died.

Then there is her very first novel, a science-fiction novel called "Gods of Green Mountain," which she wrote when she was 49. It was published posthumously as an ebook only.

Before that, she wrote 8 other novels, which have never been published, and 20 short stories, only one of which was published. It was called "I Slept with My Uncle on My Wedding Night."

But death has not kept her from writing. Since her death, she has published 54 novels, 9 mini-novels and, just this year, another ebook original.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 5:46pm

My Sweet Audrina is crazy!

It was called "I Slept with My Uncle on My Wedding Night."

That makes me laugh. She had a real fascination with incest, didn't she?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/10/12 at 5:52pm

I know. It would be sad if it weren't so funny.

Here is the description of the science-fiction novel. Now remember, there was no ghostwriter involved. This is purely a work of Virginia's imagination:

===

GODS OF GREEN MOUNTAIN by V. C. Andrews

What if mere mortals could meet their Gods and learn the answers to life's most mysterious questions?

Now they can.

Imagine a planet with two blazing suns. A world inhabited by mortals with flaming red hair, saffron colored skin, and violet eyes. A place where extreme and often violent weather conditions force the people underground where they will be safe...until the next furious storm strikes. This strange land is El Sod-A-Por, the ill-favored one, and in the far distance sits the Green Mountain, home of the Gods -- Gods who have no mercy. But everything changes when a fearless young man, Far-Awn, defies his father's warnings and travels tirelessly, in search of a star-shaped opalescent flower.

This miraculous plant becomes the source of never-ending food and can even be made into clear atmospheric domes, which enclose entire cities to ensure peace and protection.

Years later El Sod-A-Por is known as El Dorriane, the ideal, and Ras-Far, grandson of the revered Far-Awn, is king. The people happily live a life of plenty -- until an entire city is mysteriously wiped out. A civil war between the Upper and Lower Dorrianians ignites, forcing the king to send an entourage of the bravest and strongest men from each province to the Green Mountain to seek answers to this unexpected unrest.

Ras-Far's only child, the beautiful and headstrong Sharita, demands to go with the men across the arid desert plains to meet the Gods.

The handsome barbarian Dray-Gon, from Lower Dorriane, leads the expedition, but he sees the princess as an unnecessary burden. Now he will have to shield her from the ruthless sandstorms and evil outlaws who will attempt to enslave her at any opportunity. As the unprecedented journey begins, their love-hate relationship transforms into an enthralling passion, as the princess's icy exterior begins to thaw and Dray-Gon turns from a hard-edged savage into a gentle hero. But when they finally reach the Green Mountain, they are met with a shocking revelation that challenges everything they ever believed to be true....