Movie Info
Movie Name: Seeds of Yesterday
Studio: A+E Studios
Genre(s): Drama/B-Movie
Release Date(s): April 12, 2015
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Who thought this was going to turn out well?
The past always seems to come back to haunt Chris (Jason Lewis) and Cathy (Rachel Carpani). Their childhood is reborn when Cathy’s son Bart (James Maslow) decides to rebuild Foxworth Hall where all of Chris and Cathy’s nightmares began. Cathy’s son Jory (Anthony Konechny) is injured in an accident leaving his pregnant wife Melodie (Leah Gibson) struggling for an identity, and their adopted daughter Cindy (Sammi Hanratty) once again finds herself on the other end of Bart’s abusive behavior. Chris and Cathy question if they are cursed by their family’s past…but the worst is yet to come.
Directed by Shawn Ku, Seeds of Yesterday adapts the fourth novel in V.C. Andrews’ Dollanganger series which was published in 1984. Premiering on Lifetime on April 12, 2015, the film is the final film in the series and followed If There Be Thorns which was also released in 2015.
They’re a close family…
My sister read the Dollanganger books when I was little and as a voracious reader, I was willing to read whatever was put in front of me. I read the Dollanganger books which had a strange and twisted gothic horror to them. Trashy but entertaining, the movie series follows suit.
The books and the movie get progressively worse. This is the final and the worst film in the series. The movie lacks the star power of the first two films (which had both Heather Graham and Ellen Burstyn taking leading roles) and frankly the children of Chris and Cathy aren’t as inspiring as the original four children.
Part of the reason is that a lot of the twisted nature of Bart’s character could have been preventable if Chris and Cathy didn’t carry on this illicit relationship. I felt sorry for Chris and Cathy in the first films since they were shoved into a situation at an important part of their development…but here, they choose to remain together as husband and wife. The sins of the parents are passed down to the kids who in this situation who can’t possibly understand the relationship, and Bart, Jory, Melodie, and Cindy lash out at the hypocrisy of Chris and Cathy’s criticism. How is Bart wrong for thinking that brother and sister shouldn’t sleep together or wrong when he ends up sleeping with Cindy? Is Melodie cheating on Jory worse than Chris and Cathy’s sin…I don’t think it is.
Calgon…take me away!
The movies continue to look cheap but they work in the nature of the story. They almost have a romance/soap opera over exposed look to them at points. I don’t really buy the makeup work on Jason Lewis or Rachael Carpani who look too young for the roles at this point.
Seeds of Yesterday isn’t good, but it does have a nice trashy Lifetime movie feel (since it is one). Like the previous films, they play off taboo and have stories so twisted, you have to question how mainstream audiences latched on to them as novels. With the end of the film, I don’t see the series continuing, but V.C. Andrews and her ghost writers wrote plenty of other stories that still can be adapted…bring on the trash!
Related Links:
