After the death of her husband, a mother takes her kids off to live with their grandparents in a huge, decrepit old mansion. However, the kids are kept hidden in a room just below the attic, visited only by their mother who becomes less and less concerned about them and their failing health, and more concerned about herself and the inheritence she plans to win back from her dying father.
Acting
Louise Fletcher's grandmother is pure religious-fanatic nightmare fuel.
Production
That dollhouse attic set — claustrophobic gothic perfection on a budget.
Director
Jeffrey Bloom
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
VC Andrews hated the film and claimed it softened the book's incest—producers cut the sibling romance entirely, infuriating fans.
This launched a franchise of increasingly unhinged TV movies; the 2014 remake finally went there with the incest but lacked Fletcher's terrifying gravitas.
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