Fleur de poison 4: La société secrète

The last (to date, anyway, and I'm reviewing this in June 2023) Poison Ivy film.

And that's probably just as well. This was the worst of the lot, by a comfortable margin. Poor acting, a flimsy script, plenty of slow-motion sex scenes - screaming out low budget, direct-to-TV, which this was, premiering, according to the IMDB page, on Lifetime - and, really, very little really to write home about.

I didn't mind previous instalments in this series but it should have ended with 'The New Seduction'. I guess the old adage about flogging a dead horse is an apt one here. As far as Poison Ivy goes: there's not much left to be flogged, at this point.

Out of all the "Poison Ivy" I have seen, this one is like none of the three. To me, this is like "Heathers" meets " Mean Girls" only more serious. Here you have an orphaned teen named Daisy(Miriam McDonald), who lives in a small town ranch, who gets to go to s very prestigious college. Fitting in is one thing, proving your worth is another. Earlier, a student in the college died under mysterious circumstances. She catches the attention of two people: Blake(Ryan Kennedy) and the clique, the Ivies. The leader Azalea(Shawna Waldron), seduces Blake one afternoon to get ahead. In order to keep the scholarship for themselves, the Ivies go to every length to get it. Even make the new girl one of them. Blake would warn Daisy about Azalea and the Ivy society. Especially when Azalea killed his father, the dean of the college(Greg Evigan). After the scandal in college, Daisy goes back to her boyfriend, realizing her heart belongs to him. Keeping the situation to yourself is best, rather the blowing the lid of a college with secrets. Different from the first three, but it retained the same seductive manner as usual. So don't jump the gun on it, watch it and be the judge yourself. 2 out of 5 stars.

Sorry but this LMN waste is nothing but a porno movie and a bad one at that. At least in pornos you get to see more nudity and carrying on. In this we are subjected to these bunch of bimbos, overly made up and lip gloss up to here, go through the antics of being part of a sorority house that is bent in doing evil and murder. The lead gal, a hick from the sticks, is played with a vacant expression throughout the film. The evil one, in a push up bra and tons of eye makeup goes around flirting with all the male losers. In one movie, I'd love to see a character like this get so far in flirting and then be told the guy was gay and she was wasting her time. Just once. So we are forced to sit for two hours just to see them get their uppence. And it is never as exciting as all the bad deeds they do throughout the picture. Those so called sorority girls are all a bit long in the tooth to be playing young coeds. The guys look younger then they do. I wonder what the director was thinking of when he cast this. Boobs, I guess. Certainly not acting.

I thought this movie would be another follow-up to the erotic "Poison Ivy" franchise, but what we have in this very low budget film directed by Jason Hreno (an unknown director of shorts and small TV works), is more like a spin-off or an isolated job that took the attached itself to the franchise. And I say this because it really has nothing to do with the "Poison Ivy" films!

The plot centers on the sweet and naive Daisy, a country girl with a long-time boyfriend who, after losing her family, sells her land to study in the city. She manages to get into a good university and everything seems to be going smoothly, but things change quickly when she starts dating Blake, the son of the dean, who keeps an obscure connection with a secret clandestine female society for university girls that serves purposes and objectives beyond the wicked.

I think this succinct summary is enough to give us a clearer sense of everything this film is not: a "Poison Ivy" sequel. If these films were always about a young girl who uses sensuality and sex to get what she wants, here it just disappears. Daisy is everything that Ivy, Violet or even Lily never was: she is genuinely good. Wickedness is in the other girls in the secret society, but never in herself.

The cast is quite weak and it must not have been difficult for Miriam McDonald to stand out and assume the protagonism. She herself is not a brilliant actress, having excelled only in teen works, and the feeling that I have here is that she decided to follow the same path followed by other renowned teen stars like Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan or Miley Cyrus: using sex and sensuality to detach from their childish image and have more adult works. Another actress who takes her clothes off in this film is Shawna Waldron, as the villain Azalea. Yes, she is what we have here in most similar to a "Poison Ivy" protagonist, but she lacks the protagonism, the film is never about her. The rest of the cast goes out completely: Ryan Kennedy has no presence and Andrea Whitburn rarely appears and does nothing special.

Being a film with a very low budget and with little money to spend, it is totally forgettable in the technical aspects, as it has everything you need without anything that stands out in the positive: uninteresting cinematography, monotonous scenarios and costumes, no effects, a "TV quality" look and a virtually absent soundtrack.

Small town girl Daisy (Miriam McDonald of Degrassi: The Next Generation fame) attempts to start anew, leaving her steady boyfriend and country life to go to a New England college. She soon becomes embroiled in the manipulation of the secretive feminist Ivy Society, a clandestine club who has many members as well as finds a new love interest in Blake, the dean's son.

Having nothing at all to do with the first three Poison Ivy films, this is merely a slightly below average soft-core (the DVD sexes up the version that debuted on television) female version of "the Skulls". If you've seen that aforementioned film or any of the others of it's ilk, nothing here will catch you by a surprise, as it's simply a paint-by-numbers type of affair. Seeing Miriam shed some clothes might be worthwhile for fans of hers, but that's all there is to recommend this movie.

Eye Candy: Miriam McDonald & Shawna Waldron both get topless; 2 extras also get topless

My Grade: D

DVD Extras: No extras for the movie itself but an anti-piracy psa; corporate schilling for Blu-Ray; trailers for "Alien Raiders", "Friday the 13th", "Wonder Woman"; "Where the f**k is Santa?", & the X-box 360 games "Tomb Raider: Underworld"