History Film / FlowersInTheAttic

* WomanInBlack: The grandmother, who wore gray in the novel. The black serves as a constant reminder that she is stern at best and dangerous at worst.

''Flowers in the Attic'' is the 1987 [[TheFilmOfTheBook film adaptation]] of the novel of the same name by Creator/VCAndrews.

Another film adaptation was produced for the Lifetime network in 2014.

* BillingDisplacement: Kristy Swanson (Cathy) is billed below Victoria Tennant (Corrine), although Cathy is the main character and her older self narrates.
** While the 2014 Lifetime version hews closer to the novel, this billing trope remains - Kiernan Shipka (a much more age-appropriate Cathy than Miss Swanson) is billed ''third'' with Heather Graham (Corrine) and Ellen Burstyn (the grandmother) coming before her.

* DawsonCasting: This was one of the problems with the film adaptation. The actors playing the elder children are the size of full-grown adults but *act* as though they're relatively young children. This even [[PlotHole breaks the plot]] - the male lead is large enough to physically overpower the abusive grandmother, which would make escaping from the large, empty mansion trivial. The actor playing Chris was 26! Although, WMG here, but perhaps [[spoiler: being the product of incest]] might have made them feeble.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Wes Craven wrote a screenplay that Andrews turned down, and Sharon Stone auditioned for the part of Corrine.
** Craven's ending luckily survived; the studio was not happy with other scripts they commissioned that kept the downer ending where [[spoiler: like in the original book, Corrine and her grandmother get away with everything]]. So they grafted the Wes Craven ending onto the script that they ultimately picked to film in order to tie up loose ends and give the series closure with [[spoiler: Corine getting killed for her crimes]].
*** A script for a sequel (''Petals On the Wind'') was created for the second novel and Kristy Swanson and Louis Fletcher would have reprised their roles. The sequel would have focused upon Cathy's various affairs with other men, in order to try and escape her fears of falling for her brother and substituted the grandmother in Corrines role, as far as Corrine seducing her grandmother's new boyfriend as payback for her cruelty towards her grandchildren.

** Craven's ending luckily survived; the studio was not happy with other scripts they commissioned that kept the downer ending where [spoiler: like in the original book, Corrine and her grandmother get away with everything]. So they grafted the Wes Craven ending onto the script that they ultimately picked to film in order to tie up loose ends and give the series closure with [spoiler: Corine getting killed for her crimes].
*** A script for a sequel (Petals On the Wind) was created for the second novel and Kristy Swanson and Louis Fletcher would have reprised their roles. The sequel would have focused upon Cathy's various affairs with other men, in order to try and escape her fears of falling for her brother and substituted the grandmother in Corrines role, as far as Corrine seducing her grandmother's new boyfriend as payback for her cruelty towards her grandchildren.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen : Wes Craven wrote a screenplay that Andrews turned down, and Sharon Stone auditioned for the part of Corrine.

* MamaBear: Averted with Corrine, who doesn’t give a rat's crap about her kids. PlayedStraight with Cathy, who is a surrogate mother to her little brother and sister.

* DawsonCasting: This was one of the problems with the film adaptation. The actors playing the elder children are the size of full-grown adults but *act* as though they're relatively young children. This even [[PlotHole breaks the plot]] - the male lead is large enough to physically overpower the abusive grandmother, which would make escaping from the large, empty mansion trivial.

* AdaptationInducedPlotHole: The movie is set in the 1980s while the book was set in the 1950s. As a result Corrine going back to her rich family for money instead of finding a job herself is a little strange since there were less housewives and stay-at-home mothers in the 80s than there were in the 50s. Also Chris and Cathy are aged up to around fifteen and sixteen (they are fourteen and twelve respectively in the book) so one wonders why they didn't work either.

** Corrine does have rather expensive tastes, and few jobs would give her a high enough income. And she put it all on credit cards.

* InsufferableGenius: Christopher wants to be a doctor, which apparently involves knowing everything there is to know about everything in the world. It gets to the point where Cathy snaps and screams at him for it.

* AdaptationDistillation: The film is only 90 minutes long. As such, a lot of the emotional drama of the novel as the children are slowly worn away by their attic prison is glossed over with bits of narration.

* TheVoiceless: The butler John never speaks, though the fact that he does in the book would indicate that he just never says anything rather than that he is mute.

From the outside, the Dollangangers appear to be the perfect family: happily married parents Chris and Corrine and four beautiful children Christopher, Cathy, Carrie, and Corey. But when father Christopher is killed on the night of his thirty-sixth birthday, the family is quickly financially devastated. Lack of savings and Corrine's inability to find work mean that they must sell their possessions and then their house. Soon there is only one place left for them to go.

* UnnamedParent: The grandparents are only known as The Grandmother and The Grandfather. In the film, the father's name is never given.

* DrinkingGame: the Forever Young Adult website has a pretty good one, mixed with a review.
* TheFilmOfTheBook
* IncestSubtext: The scene with the father giving Cathy her music box when she's alone in her bed, topped off with giving her a ring in a posture that looks very like a proposal. [[spoiler: Cathy and Christopher's relationship is relegated to subtext at best.]]
* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: The cookies, or more specifically, the arsenic-laced sugar topping]].
* DaddysGirl: Cathy. Corrine aspires to become this again.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Of the super-religious type. The Grandmother takes the incestuous relationship her daughter had committed, and used it as an excuse to starve, abuse, lie, blackmail, dehumanize children,and commit outright murder, among other things. Also, it is mentioned once that the grandfather feels like he is entitled to act however he wants and do whatever he wants because he funded a church.

* InTheBlood: The Grandmother believes [[spoiler: incest]] runs in the Dollinganger family. It does.