An excellent, underrated film ruined by two pathetic sequels

I first saw this moody, atmospheric film on cable in 1993, being 15 at the time, I wasn't really into erotic flicks like this, but since Drew Barrymore was in it, I decided to stay up and watch it. Time completely slipped away from me while I watched it. I was transfixed. The movie had everything: an excellent cast, beautiful cinematography and look to it, superb acting and a brilliant storyline. I recorded the last half hour of the film because I enjoyed it so much, and purchased a VHS copy a year later. In 2000, I bought the DVD and thanks to the internet, heard about the two sequels. My expectations were pretty small (how could you follow up a film like this without completely ripping it off?). Poison Ivy II was absoloutly terrible. Everything that made the original great was gone. There is absoloutly nothing to it. Alyssa Milano's character is never completely 'obsessed' with Ivy, if she was, she would have gone to horrible lengths to be like her, which meant doing all things Ivy did, not just the sleeping around and skanky dressing, but the deception and even murder as well. Poison Ivy III was awful, you know those late night soft-core porn films with absoloutly horrendous acting and plot lines, well this could easily be considered one of them. The whole film was forced, the acting was putrid, and it seemed as if it only existed for the value of sex.

Nobody seems to acknowledge the original Poison Ivy today; it never got the attention it deserved. Perhaps this is because of the marketing, maybe because Drew Barrymore wasn’t a huge star in 1992, maybe because people just didn’t want to see an erotic film like this – maybe they were all busy with Basic Instinct. It’s certainly hasn’t remained notorious all these years on (in the vein of other erotic flicks like Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction or Blue Velvet)…its pretty much a forgotten, late-night thriller film. Why didn’t this become huge, or even a cult classic? It certainly had the potential. Suppose it’s too late now to be revitalized. Least I can recognize this is an excellent movie without being ashamed at the same time. It’s not really like those other soft-core porn films, it has something about it.