Taglines: Ivy’s best friend had the perfect house, the perfect family, and the perfect life. So …Ivy took them.
Poison Ivy movie storyline. Sylvie Cooper (Sara Gilbert) is a alienated and misanthropic teenage girl at a private high school for the wealthy. She first meets “Ivy” (Drew Barrymore), a poor but intelligent and highly trashy girl, at a local hangout where Ivy enjoyed rope-swinging from a tree. A young boy runs up and says, “Come on! A dog got hit!” Sylvie kneels next to the still breathing dog when all of a sudden Ivy crushes the dog’s skull with a pipe (to put it out of its misery).
While sitting in the office for phoning in a bomb threat to a local TV station (that Sylvie’s father works for) she sees Ivy walk in and begins to talk to her. Later that day, when Sylvie’s father (Tom Skeritt) picks her up, Ivy asks for a ride. At first Darryl, Sylvie’s father, is reluctant, but grudgingly compromises. Ivy tells Sylvie she gets car sick and asks to ride in the front (a ruse to get near Darryl, Ivy has a bit of a fetish for older men). Ivy puts her bare feet on the dashboard and allows her mini-skirt to shrug back onto her hip revealing her legs. Darryl takes notice.
A few weeks later, after Sylvie is no longer grounded, they meet again at the same hangout. They walk to Sylvie’s house together, on the way Sylvie tells Ivy that Darryl is her adoptive father and that her biological father was black. She also says that she once tried to kill herself. Sylvie invites Ivy into her parent’s mansion. They walk into the living room overlooking the San Fernando Valley.
Ivy says that if she were to kill herself she’d like to fall. Sylvie’s sickly mother, Georgie (Cheryl Ladd), walks in on their conversation, and it turns out that Sylvie was lying about her attempted suicide and her father. Georgie does not want Sylvie to be friends with Ivy initially, but Ivy later wins Georgie over by talking about her scholarship and helping her unblock her oxygen tank.
In a voice-over, Sylvie narrates that Georgie liked Ivy’s energy and that her mother and stepfather enjoyed Ivy so much that Ivy had practically moved in. Over the next several weeks, Ivy and Sylvie sleep in the same bed and share clothes, but when Georgie offers to lend Ivy some of her clothes because of their similar figures, Ivy begins to wear the expensive clothes.
After a spat with her parents, Sylvie says she wants to do something to “make her parents cringe” and Ivy convinces her to get a tattoo so that “they can be like blood sisters”.
A few days later, Darryl decides to throw a party at his house to try and improve his failing career, and he enlists Sylvie to help him. When Sylvie’s boss at the charity center calls Ivy picks up the phone and tells him that Sylvie can work the night of the party, which allows Ivy to fill in. She straightens her hair and wears one of Georgie’s dresses. That night, after the party, she dances in the kitchen and then begins to dance with Darryl.
Georgie walks in on them and storms upstairs. While Georgie and Darryl are sitting together, Ivy walks in and tells Georgie that she is sorry. She claims that Darryl came into the kitchen to cry, and that she was only hugging him to make him feel better. Georgie believes her and accepts a glass of champagne from Ivy. She then falls unconscious because of the pills Ivy had put in the champagne beforehand. Ivy sits on the bed next to Georgie, and begins to massage Darryl with her foot while he kisses her legs.
Ivy appears to change over the next few days. She continues to straighten her hair and wears more and more of Georgie’s clothing. Sylvie becomes increasingly irritated with Ivy and throws a fit when she finds Ivy with her dog in Georgie’s sports car. She makes Fred (the dog) choose between her and Ivy. Ivy cheats and shakes the treats in her pockets while she calls Fred.
That day, Sylvie skips school and tries to spend some time alone to sort things out in her head. Darryl picks Ivy up and they go out into the forest where Ivy gets Darryl drunk while they have sex. The next morning, Georgie plays a record that Sylvie made for her and walks out onto her balcony. Ivy walks up behind her and begins talking to Georgie. Then, without warning, Ivy pushes Georgie off the balcony and makes it look like a suicide (which Georgie regularly threatened).
Poison Ivy is a 1992 American erotic thriller film directed by Katt Shea. It stars Drew Barrymore, Sara Gilbert, Tom Skerritt, and Cheryl Ladd. The original music score is composed by David Michael Frank. The film was shot in Los Angeles. It was nominated for the 1992 Grand Jury prize of Best Film at the Sundance Festival. Sara Gilbert was nominated for Best Supporting Female at the 1993 Independent Spirit Awards.
Although it did not fare very well at the box office, grossing $1,829,804 with its limited theatrical release to 20 movie theaters, the film received favorable word-of-mouth, and became a success on cable and video in the mid-1990s. It is the first installment in a film series that includes three direct-to-video sequels.
Producers Melissa Goddard and Peter Morgan bought the original idea to New Line. The studio then hired Katt Shea who had made a number of movies for Roger Corman; according to head of production Sara Risher, the studio wanted “a teenage Fatal Attraction”.
The film developed greatly from this premise. There were three different drafts of the script and four different endings. According to Shea, the original ending had Ivy getting away with her crimes and hitch-hiking along a road. However, New Line insisted that Ivy be punished and made her shoot a new ending where Ivy died. New Line then wanted Shea to revive the character for sequels which the director did not want to do; Shea now says she regrets the decision.
Shea says that she never regarded Ivy as villainous, but rather as a tragic character who just wants to be loved. She credits this for the film’s popularity.
Poison Ivy (1992)
Directed by: Katt Shea
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Sara Gilbert, Tom Skerritt, Cheryl Ladd, Alan Stock, Jeanne Sakata, E. J. Moore, J. B. Quon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Goldner, Charley Hayward, Mary Gordon Murray
Screenplay by: Andy Ruben, Katt Shea, Melissa Goddard
Production Design by: Virginia Lee
Cinematography by: Phedon Papamichael
Film Editing by: Gina Mittelman
Costume Design by: Ellen Gross
Set Decoration by: Michele Munoz
Makeup Department: Diana Brown, René Dashiell Kerby
Music by: David Michael Frank
MPAA Rating: R for sensuality and language.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release Date: May 8, 1992
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