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Poison Ivy: The Secret Society
By: M. Enois Duarte, 2.27.2009
The Movie Itself:
If one were asked to name any popular film series, the Poison Ivy movies wouldn't even make it to the bottom rung of the totem pole. The first thing that always comes to mind is horror movies (Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street) or action-comedies (Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, Die Hard), not some direct-to-video erotic thriller from the 1990s. Despite the original earning a nomination at the Sundance Film Festival and reigniting the career of Drew Barrymore, the Poison Ivy series barely even register in the memory banks of most movie buffs. In an effort to completely bleed whatever cult status remains from the first movie, Poison Ivy: The Secret Society premiered on the Lifetime Movie Network and plays out more like an unintentional farce than a serious thriller of campus rivalry.
In this fourth installment of teenage seduction, The Secret Society strays heavily from its predecessors and moves to a college campus of socialites. There, we find innocent, small town orphan Daisy (Miriam McDonald), wishing to improve the direction of her life and move past the death of her parents. Admitted to the prestigious Beckshire College, she is passionate in her studies, makes friends with her roommate, Magenta (Andrea Whitburn), and wins the affection of the dean's son, Blake (Ryan Kennedy). Meanwhile, Azalea (Shawna Waldron), the leader of a mysterious clique known as the Ivies, learns that Daisy is in line for an internship she desires and plots to steal it from her. Soon, Daisy is "tapped" to join the exclusive club and discovers that the sisterhood use their sexuality, blackmail, and murder to feed their cold-blooded ambition. Rather than give in, Daisy decides to fight back and end their reign of terror.
To be perfectly honest, it's rather difficult to continue beyond the synopsis, let alone watch it. The plot is not only absurd, but also incoherent, as the story stumbles over its own fantasized complexity and barely demands anything of its audience besides keeping track of character names. But even that requires a certain amount of attention, as we trod along from one scenario to the next, muddling one scheme after the other. Azalea must have one heck of a day planner, because I sure had difficulty following all her conspiracies. Wait, the Dean used her as a foil to do what? How exactly does their murder serve any purpose? And can Blake make up his mind already, does he love her or not? Geez, this has got to be the world's most demanding internship!
Whereas the other Poison Ivy movies involved a more erotic take on the idea of the seductive prowess of a young Lolita, this mindless fare doesn't do much of anything. The cast is mediocre on its best day, and the direction establishes shots which promise sexual encounters that border on soft-core porn, but come off cringe-inducing instead. Dull and listless, this direct-to-video is a hard one to recommend, even for curiosity's sake.
Rating: 1/10
The Presentation:
Poison Ivy 4 was clearly shot on high-definition video and tailor-made for a televised presentation. Utilizing the VC-1 encode in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the transfer displays a palette that heavily saturates the colors, embellishing the greens and reds. The video is intentionally glossy and squeaky-clean, leaving the entire photography with plenty of detail and clarity. The quality of the overall appearance is similar to reference videos used for calibration purposes. The drawback of creating such an image is the lack of depth, giving the picture this look of soap-opera-ish quality shot for HDTV. Blacks can appear accurate, but again, lack gradational levels for distinguishing between background and foreground objects, causing details to disappear in dark scenes. Contrast is bland and on the warmer side --- sometimes unbearably so --- softening details in certain scenes and making flesh tones appear lifeless and unnatural. Overall, the movie simply looks boring.
On the audio side of things, we don't have much luck either. Honored with the legacy codec Dolby Digital 5.1, activity beyond the center channel is practically uneventful. Dialogue wavers between intelligible to muffled. Some scenes even had the actors sounding obviously post-processed, straight out of a sound studio with terrible reverberation, almost as if they were playing "telephone" with two tin-cans and a string. Separation and pans between channels feels forged and artificial. The same goes for discrete ambient effects, with random birds and chatter suddenly appearing out of nowhere. The only thing which left an impression was the track's musical score, filling the room with it's strange mix of Michael Cretu's Enigma music and modern electronics, and finally bringing the LFE-channel into the mix, however lightly. But like the video, the soundtrack is monotonous and unappealing.
Rating: 4/10
The Extras:
Nope, nothing to see here. Not that you'd really want to anyways. Right?
Rating: 0/10
Overall:
Well, if you have a strange curiosity to see how this, ahem, gem passed you by, then by all means, be my guest. Especially with rumors now floating around of a fifth installment that will see the return of Drew Barrymore's Ivy, then you just might be sadistic enough to take a gander at Poison Ivy: The Secret Society. However, don't expect much from the A/V presentation.
Rating: 2/10
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