Review: If There Be Thorns

Moving the story of siblings/lovers Cathy and Christopher (Rachael Carpani and Jason Lewis) ahead several years sees the duo playing happy families with their two kids Jory (Jedediah Goodacre) and Bart Jr (Mason Cook). Trouble comes when Cathy and Christopher’s estranged mother Corrine (Heather Graham) secretly moves in next door and tries to ingratiate herself into the two boys’ lives. Jory isn’t interested, but Bart Jr. (the offspring of Cathy sleeping with her mother’s lover) can’t help but be intrigued. Also making an impression on the boy is Corrine’s creepy manservant John Amos (Mackenzie Gray, who might remind you a tad of Angus Scrimm from the “Phantasm” movies), who knows all of his family’s dirty secrets and hands the boy his grandfather’s diary. Just what is John Amos’ deal? And what will happen once Cathy and Christopher inevitably meet their new next door neighbour?

 

I am reliably informed that the series of Virginia/VC Andrews books are fun trash, but this 2015 TV movie from director Nancy Savoca (Going from directing River Phoenix in “Dogfight” to this? Wow. Just…wow) and screenwriter Andy Cochran (who has written one episode of TV’s “Teen Wolf”) continues the trend of poorly written, poorly acted adaptations. The two previous films from 2014 were pretty awful, with “Flowers in the Attic” being a total botch-job and “Petals on the Wind” being a tediously generic and silly soap opera. This one’s much less soapy than “Petals”, but a long, long way from being a good film.

 

Lead actor Jason Lewis has a Ted Bundy/Patrick Bateman ‘handsome psycho’ seedy look about him that kinda works for his character (he’s got a touch of Red Skull about his face, too. Am I the only one?). I like that they’ve tried to push the incest factor as far as a TV movie is allowed, but that so far has been this series’ only real credit. I will say, though, that this is the best-looking film in the series, with a really nice, slightly Gothic-look to it. Elsewhere the film is seriously lacking, especially in the scripting department. Having the evil mother move in next door is a massive contrivance that probably worked much better in the book, mostly because it wouldn’t have a ridiculous Heather Graham in her weakest performance of the series. She gives a horribly affected and caricatured turn here. And why does she half-heartedly try to conceal her face, yet still calls herself Mrs. Foxworth? Geez. That’s just poor writing, whether it’s Andrews or Cochran to blame. And then she dramatically takes off her veil…as if we didn’t already know it was her. Wow. So stupid. I also have to say that, although Graham is amazingly in her 40s, she doesn’t even look close to old enough to be mother to Aussie TV actress Rachael Carpani (How the not-so mighty hath fallen?), no matter how many make-up assisted crow’s feet and grey streaks of hair they put on her. They’re practically the same age, and clearly look it. There’s something really creepy about the lies she spins, but Graham’s performance is too overwrought to work. Even worse is Mason Cook as Bart Jr., who is almost as bad as the twit who played the temperamental dancer in “Petals on the Wind” (And that guy was fucking abysmal). Much better, and continually stealing scenes is creepy-looking Mackenzie Gray as Graham’s servant, who knows too much. The interesting thing about him is that he’s the only morally righteous person in the entire film (I would’ve said Jory’s girlfriend, but then she completely sullies herself by having the most unbelievable change of heart in the history of changes of heart. She was dead to me after that). Unfortunately, by film’s end they’ve turned him into a stock standard raving, violent religious loon like dear ‘ol granny was.

 

I also take exception to what surely must’ve been Cochran taking a pot-shot at Conservatives, by a mention of ‘Leftists’ at one point by one of the main characters. I’m a lefty myself, but the film clearly wants to equate all this incestuous creepiness and hypocrisy to Conservatives, which is just foul and unnecessary. Why bother tacking that on?

 

A little more interesting than “Petals on the Wind”, but overall still really poor and massively contrived. I have no idea how close this gets to the original text, but I can’t say I got much entertainment value out of this one. 

 

Rating: D+