Petals on the Wind (2014)

Right around a second after the ratings success of their 2014 adaptation of the  V. C. Andrews novel Flowers in the Attic, The Lifetime Network announced that they were going to make a movie out of the next book in authors 'Dollanganger series', Petals on the Wind. Well they certainly wasted no time, Flowers came out in January and Petals premiered May 26th. The rush in production no doubtl contributed greatly to the rushed feeling of this film, which I have heard memorably described as "cliff notes on crack" as it speeds through melodramatic plot-point after melodramatic plot point, drops entirely large portions of the beginning of the book, and I believe changed the ending (I haven't read these books, but I've heard my mother talk about them). Petals is directed and acted competently, its the story that makes it like watching a car wreak, its morbidly fascinating and I just couldn't look away. At the end of the first film I was desperate for the Dollanganer mother Corrine (Heather Graham) to get her come-uppance, which she did in this film, but neither in an entirely satisfying, nor an entirely disappointing way. I liked the casting of the film, good lookers all (including Rose McIver and Bailey Buntain), which brings the rot/vulnerability beneath their characters out in a weird way. Anyway this was enjoyably exploitive trash, treated with more care then it might seem to warrant, which again was a V. C. Andrews specialty. **1/2