Rain

Rain is a straight to DVD film based on (IMHO) one of the weakest series in the V.C. Andrews oeuvre. Rain is a series/film following a biracial girl who leaves the ghetto after her younger sister is murdered. At her adoptive mother's request she moves in with her maternal grandmother and enter the white bred world of the uber-rich.

The movie is flat out confusing and chops out large parts of the novel. Her "brother" Roy despite being a major prescence in the novel vanishes near the beginning, her real brother Brody who had a crush on Rain (but not knowing they were related) and her real sister never make an appearance and the film is saddled with a lame subplot about gang bangers following Rain to her grandmother's and demanding that she steal for them. The acting is mostly dull and uninspired (save for Khandi Alexander and Faye Dunaway of course). They sacrifice plot for long drawn out scenes of Rain singing,despite the fact that in the novel Rain was an actress. The ending does follow the novels but seems like a desperate grab for a sequel as opposed to a proper ending.

This is the second V.C. Andrews novel brought to the "big screen" and the second one to fail. Andrews' first novel Flowers in The Attic also was a disaster with the whole incest storyline chopped out and the ending was a complete washout that disabled any chance of a sequel. V.C. Andrews are dark, twisted, Gothic horror featuring incest, rape, child abuse etc etc. When you try to whitewash a novel clearly written for "adult" into a film that you want the "tweens" to see you negate the whole point of bringing a novel to the screen.

There are rumors that Lifetime is bringing the Landry series to the small screen with a miniseries saddled with the unfortunate title of The Landry. Maybe the third time will be a charm.