Louise Fletcher: Grandmother

Flowers in the Attic

Grandmother

Grandmother: Your mother has come home after seventeen years to repent for her sins and for her crime. Not only against your grandfather and me, but against God! Your mother's marriage was unholy! A sacrilege! An abomination in the eyes of the Lord! She did not fall from Grace! She leapt! Into the arms of a man whose veins pulsed with the same blood as hers! Not a stranger, but her own uncle! And you, the children, are the devil's spawn! Evil from the moment of conception!
Cathy: [shouts] I'm getting my mother!
[gets up from the bed and runs to the door]
Grandmother: [shouts] Come back here!
[Cathy opens the door and sees John and screams and then returns to her bed]
Grandmother: Sit down, be silent and don't move again until I leave.

Grandmother: No child in this house will shout or scream or show defiance! Do you hear me? Do you? Now, remove your blouse, daughter. And show them how punishment is given in this house.
Mother: If you're cruel to my children, I'll take them away tonight.
Grandmother: Take them, Corrine! Take them now. Do you think I care?
[laughs as Corrine cries]
Grandmother: Take off the blouse, Corrine. Take it off!
[Corrine takes off her blouse]
Grandmother: Look closely, children. 17 lashes. One for each year she lived in sin with your father. So that you understand me now, I will give you food and shelter, but never kindness or love. For it is impossible to feel anything but disgust for what is not wholesome.

[original deleted ending]
[the grandmother screams in fury as she rushes at the three children with a butcher knife until John grabs her forcing her to drop the knife]
John Hall: LET THEM GO!
[the grandmother tries to fight back, but John forcefully pushes her through a door into an elevator before barricading her in as the three children watch on]
Grandmother: [quavering in tears, prays] The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul.
[drops of red blood begin to hit her forehead]
Grandmother: [cries frantically] The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want! He maketh me to lie down in green pastures! He leadeth me...
[the grandmother slowly opens her eyes and looks up only to see her caretaker lying dead on the barred roof of the elevator above her]
Grandmother: [screams in terror] AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
[the grandmother rattles on the elevator bars frantically as she screams and cries violently to be let out, she is now shown drenched in blood]
Grandmother: [screams violently] HELP!
[the three children watch in amazement as John delivers a nod at them, the three children smile at him before leaving and celebrating their freedom]

Mother: The boys will sleep in one bed, Corinne, the girls in the other.
Carrie Dollanganger: But I wanna sleep with Cory, Mama...
Grandmother: Stop your whimpering, young lady, and listen to me. As long as you're in this house, you will abide by my rules. You will not yell, or cry, or run about. And when your mother and I leave this room, we will lock this door behind us.
Mother: Mother, please, my children... You can't expect them to...
Grandmother: What I expect, Corinne, is that they will do *precisely* as I've instructed.
Mother: [to her children] Listen up, all of you. Behave, and obey your grandmother. And never, never give her any reason, any reason to punish you.
[eyes wet]
Mother: Please? Please do this. Make it seem like a game. Like a wonderful adventure.
Cathy: Why are you crying, Mother?