Stupidity: When Cathy, Chris and Carrie go into their late grandfather's room, they discover a copy of the grandfather's will that states that if it was ever discovered that Corrine had children, she would lose everything. Had they taken the will to their mom's wedding and showed it to her fiance, they would have been able to expose the scam much quicker. Instead, they take the dead mouse Fred with them and show it to everybody. What good would a dead mouse do when a will has more leverage?
Flowers in the Attic (1987)
1 stupidity
Directed by: Jeffrey Bloom
Starring: Kristy Swanson, Louise Fletcher, Victoria Tennant, Jeb Stuart Adams
Continuity mistake: When Corrine takes off her blouse, she shows her children seventeen scars on her back that she got from being whipped by the grandmother. Later in the movie, when Corrine is dancing at a party, she is wearing a strapless dress and there are no scars or any signs that she was struck with a whip.
Cathy: Christopher, what is it?
Chris: A copy of Grandfather's will. It's 2 months old. It says if it was ever proven Mom had children from her first marriage, even after he's dead, she'd be disinherited.
Cathy: Mother's known all this time that we could never be found.
Chris: She never meant for us to leave that attic.
Trivia: Flowers in the Attic author V.C. Andrews has a cameo appearance in the film as a window-washing maid.
Question: Who laced the cookies that were given to the children with arsenic? It's never shown who applies it, only who takes the cookies to them.
Answer: When the children discover the cookies had been poisoned (revealed by the death of their pet mouse which ate part of one of the cookies), they suspect their grandmother. After all, she was the one who had been cruel to them all along. But eventually, they realise that it was in fact, their mother, Corinne, who was lacing the cookies with poison. She was doing so with the hope that the children would eventually die, seemingly from disease. In doing so, she would secure the family inheritance which was contingent upon her never having had children from her first marriage. They eventually confront their mother on the day of her second wedding, and a struggle ensues which ultimately leads to Corinne falling to her death from a balcony.
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Suggested correction: We never see them put the will away. It's possible one of them had it in their pocket during the wedding scene, but they just never showed it because A. Showing the will would have given motive for their mother to want to kill them, but not have proved that these children were hers, and B. The dead mouse is a more visceral, hate-fueled move that matches Kristy's anger.