Sally Draper's New Movie Is Uncomfortable

Are you ready to witness Sally Draper having sex with her brother? Because I am not, I am really, really not. Oh god. Not ready. Nope. But Kiernan Shipka is starring in Lifetime's Flowers in the Attic adaptation/remake, and said movie now has a trailer. So it's time to get ready, because it's happening.

Full disclosure: For a solid stretch of my adolescence (ages 11-13), Flowers in the Attic was one of my favorite books. After reading it I spend the next couple of years rooting through every thrift store near me for every V.C. Andrews book. This is not at all uncommon; V.C. Andrews' body of work, especially Flowers in the Attic, cites that exact demographic of middle school-aged girls as its main one.

They're gothic horror, saucy and full of purple prose and sexy times and oh yeah buttloads of incest — it simultaneously makes sense and is utterly horrifying, the levels to which young girls have long attached themselves to these stories.

Which brings us to this new adaptation of Flowers in the Attic. As with the original novel it follows the Dollanganger family and their...ahem, issues. Namely, their raging incest, abuse, and that time a mother and grandmother locked four kids in an attic for years. (Get it? They're the flowers in the attic). Heather Graham stars as the horrible mother, Ellen Burstyn as the even more horrible grandmother, and Shipka and Mason Dye as siblings/lovers/heroes Cathy and Chris.

There was a previous adaptation of the novel — a 1987 one starring Kristy Swanson and Louise Fletcher — which I remember raging about when I was 13 because it wasn't a faithful enough adaptation for me. Luckily I have since grown out of my V.C. Andrews phase and into my "Lifetime original movies are hilarious ways to pass your time" phase, so whatever this film brings I look forward to being made deeply uncomfortable by it.

Is it weird that I am genuinely upset that Jessica Lange is not in this movie?

Image: James Dittiger/Lifetime