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Attention V.C. Andrews purists! The new adaptation of cult favorite Flowers in the Attic — starring Mad Men‘s Kiernan Shipka, Heather Graham, and Ellen Burstyn — will be airing on Lifetime on January 18, 2014.

For at least one generation of readers, Andrews’ 1979 book Flowers in the Attic was the Twilight or Hunger Games of its day, passed around at slumber parties and summer camp (this classic cover is imprinted on some of our brains for all eternity) and selling more than 40 million copies worldwide.
A 1987 film that starred Kristy Swanson, Victoria Tennant, and Louise Fletcher disappointed fans (but delighted lovers of camp) by deviating from some of the deviant behavior in the original text (decades-old-spoiler alert!): In order to inherit a fortune, a mother locks away her four children in an attic for over two years, leaving them to endure horrific abuse at the hands of their sadistic grandmother. But that’s not all! During their imprisonment, elder siblings Cathy and Chris develop romantic feelings for each other — and eventually have a sexual relationship. The new Lifetime film promises to go there. Yes, there. “The script is faithful to the book,” says director Deborah Chow. Or, to put it more bluntly: “Will there be incest? Yes,” says Mason Dye, who plays elder brother Chris. “We stay very true to the book.”
We’ll have to wait till January to see just how dark this thing gets, but Ellen Burstyn, for one, says she was surprised at how exhausting it is to play a woman as evil as her character. “I’ve been completely drained by the end of the day,” the Oscar winner says. “I’ve been sleeping 11 hours a day. My psyche must be trying to clear it.”

Luckily for Kiernan Shipka, playing Cathy — the main protagonist — has been less taxing. “When it comes down to it, everything is just acting,” she says. “It’s not my real life, it’s not happening to me. I can separate the two so it doesn’t leak in.”

Lifetime has gone ahead and ordered a sequel on its TV movie Flowers In The Attic before Flowers debuts. Based on V.C. Andrews’ book, Flowers In The Attic follows four siblings — two boys and two girls — who, after their father’s death, are torn from an idyllic life and subjected to cruel abuse resulting from a long-hidden family secret. Abandoned by their mother (Heather Graham) and forced to endure unimaginable treatment living in their grandparents’ attic, they form their own family unit. But as the oldest boy (Mason Dye) and girl (Kiernan Shipka) come of age, their family’s past entraps them further as they try to escape from the harsh conditions in which they live. Ellen Burstyn portrays the children’s grandmother, Olivia. Flowers debuts January 18.

“Ellen is caught in frigid New York but we can feel her evil presence from the video,” joked Rob Sharenow, EVP and General Manager of Lifetime, as he introduced the Flowers panel, after announcing the sequel, Petals On The Wind.

Flowers is set in the 1950s, as is the book because in this era of Facebook and Twitter, “you can’t just have two teens disappearing without people knowing where they are,” said screenwriter Kayla Alpert. Much discussion during the Q&A session as to who on the show’s cast and in the audience had read the book as children — what with it’s incest, mother abandonment, kids stuck in the attack, evil Granny, etc. ”I do want to confess I did read the book – above the covers because my parents took no interest in what I was reading,” Sharenow said.

For An Angel wrote:This airs tonight! Don't miss it!

yoko wrote:

For An Angel wrote:This airs tonight! Don't miss it!

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