Here's something Drew Barrymore might not want to put on her résumé. Poison Ivy was made just before her career started to take off, but unfortunately her performance here is so childish and clumsy that the first impression I got was not "hey, here's young Drew Barrymore" but more "hey, it's that kid from E.T making out with that kid from Roseanne", which gave the whole thing an awkward feel.
At its core Poison Ivy is a run-of-the-mill erotic thriller of the kind that was all over in the early 90's, it's filled with clichés that have been explored in dozens of better movies from Single White Female to Swimming Pool; but Barrymore is unconvincing in the role of the seductive femme fatale, and as it is the scenes of awkward teen Barrymore seducing older Tom Skerritt just made me uncomfortable and felt like Skerritt is the real villain. Terrible acting from some at least somewhat talented people (Barrymore, Skerritt and Sara Gilbert are all awful - Cheryl Ladd is the only one who gives a passable performance) can almost be overlooked thanks to very solid cinematography, but as the movie progresses it's impossible to not realize how silly the whole thing is. Poison Ivy recycles every trope from every movie in its genre, but it feels like a high-school production. As it is it might be memorable as a meeting between two generations of Charlie's Angels, and little else.
At its core Poison Ivy is a run-of-the-mill erotic thriller of the kind that was all over in the early 90's, it's filled with clichés that have been explored in dozens of better movies from Single White Female to Swimming Pool; but Barrymore is unconvincing in the role of the seductive femme fatale, and as it is the scenes of awkward teen Barrymore seducing older Tom Skerritt just made me uncomfortable and felt like Skerritt is the real villain. Terrible acting from some at least somewhat talented people (Barrymore, Skerritt and Sara Gilbert are all awful - Cheryl Ladd is the only one who gives a passable performance) can almost be overlooked thanks to very solid cinematography, but as the movie progresses it's impossible to not realize how silly the whole thing is. Poison Ivy recycles every trope from every movie in its genre, but it feels like a high-school production. As it is it might be memorable as a meeting between two generations of Charlie's Angels, and little else.