Petals On The Wind (2014)
This boring sequel to ‘Flowers In The Attic’ is set 10 years later and opens at the funeral of Paul, the children’s adoptive father. Much is glossed over here as whole plots from the book are excised. Cathy talks about how he took them in, adopted them and sent them to school. How did he adopt them or send them to school? New actors play the 3 surviving children and cycles of abuse repeat and history repeats. This was astonishingly bad.
Cathy (Rose McIver of ‘iZombie’) rings her vile bitch mother Corrine (Heather Graham) to torment her. Chris is a medical student under Dr Reeves (Nick Searcy) and dates Reeves’ daughter. Corrine is married to Bart (Dylan Bruce) and bullies her stroke afflicted mother Olivia (Ellen Burstyn). Corrine pops pills, frolics, is draped in jewels and furs and administers angry hand jobs. No wonder she ends up in the nut house at the end.
Cathy does ballet and meets Julian. Corrine plots to send Olivia to a nursing home and is punitive and demeaning. She redecorates Foxworth Hall but doesn’t put in a fire suppression system which is to her cost at the end when she burns the house down. Carrie is bullied at school. Olivia raves about Corrine poisoning her children and damning her to hell.
Cathy and Chris have no side effects from being in the attic for 2 years. Carrie is short but that seems to be the only side effect she has. Corrine has denial and vanity and absolute disregard for her children and Bart. When Bart dies at the end, nobody seems to care. This had no lovely morbid touches. Chris is creepy and wooden. Julian (Will Kemp) is sullen. There is no heartbreaking emotion. Chris and Cathy get it on again and talk about a miscarriage she had. Corrine is cracking up. There is sex, Chris’ galpal has a bad Southern accent, Carrie is lectured about a cotillion and Yolande sluts around but doesn’t feature as heavily as she did in the book.
Cathy dates Julian who abuses her. Corrine can’t take responsibility. I felt disfavour for this. There are ugly clothes and even the high drama of Cathy exposing her mother’s sins and the reveal of what became of Cory’s body can’t make this good. Corrine didn’t drive the darkness out of Foxworth Hall because it is in her. Carrie screeches. Corrine has the attic plastered over and forgotten as she has Foxworth Hall gutted. Surprisingly the builders did not smell Cory’s corpse or see the Cathy Was Here graffiti.
Corrine deserves moral condemnation. A stereotypical black maid and nurse show up. Is it the 1970s or the 1960s? Cathy has her son Jory but Julian dies in a hilarious car crash. She ends up teaching ballet to kiddies. There are time jumps every other scene. Carrie gets a boyfriend who is nice. He is religious and asks her to marry him. It is casually brought up that Julian abused Carrie and then never mentioned again. Carrie wants Corrine to come to her wedding; Corrine ignores her so Carrie kills herself with rat poison which is kept next to the baked goods.
What sort of kitchen storage is that? And rat poison wouldn’t kill you. Cathy and Chris learn that Carrie wrote to their mother for years but Corrine had every single letter returned. Bitch move. Carrie begged her mother for love but the cloud of doom over the family destroyed her. Cathy is fond of verbal threats. Whole plots from the book have been razed. This is better than the book which isn’t saying much.
Cathy seduces stupid Bart. Corrine is blank. Poor fragile love-starved Carrie (Bailey De Young nee Buntain of ‘Faking It’). Cathy’s cold hearted revenge leads to the holy hag’s death and revenge being a mother as Corrine is in the nut ward screaming for the children who no longer love her. But the price was Cathy and Chris’ inappropriate relationship is out and they hide under fake names pretending to be married with Jory and Cathy’s son with Bart: Bart Jnr. I have no desire to watch ‘If There Be Thorns’. Cathy’s reunion with the grandmother and her revenge on Corrine weren’t dramatic enough.
Best Lines:
“Reap the harvest in hell.”
“Pretended to love me.”
“Take my rightful place.”
“Stranded at a bus depot with 30 dollars in our pocket and no hope in sight.”
“Tell them Corrine or I will.”
“You didn’t even bury him.”
“How could a stranger love us and she couldn’t?”
“Never escape this family.”
“I make the rules in this house now.”
“I know exactly what you can do.”
“So you’ve told me many times.”
“God already punished us once.”
“Pathetic old hag.”
“He was filth.”
“What took you so long?”
“2 years? Try 60 in this godforsaken house.”
“Why can’t you love me?”
“The intimates store.”
“I don’t want to be tripping over your crap.”
“It’s your money.”
“Yes it is.”
“Can I get you a doughnut?”
“Mom and Dad weren’t supposed to be together.”
“Forget the attic.”
“I want no part of it.”
“She doesn’t love us.”
“The devil didn’t make us that way, she did!”
“Everything I know about pain, I learned from her.”
“I’m finished, we both are.”
“God will forgive you.”
~
Dracula Untold (2014)
This was historically incorrect and casually awful.
Best Line:
“This is your loyalty? Your gratitude?”