Fleur de poison 4: La société secrète

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.

first off I was surprised to see ole BJ and the Bear star Greg Evigan back on the screen,, where has he been. this movie goes in a different direction and does not follow the first 3 Poison Ivy films.. this one has a girl starting her life over at a New England college. sorta like a prep school I guess. kinda like female version of Skulls. but anyways to be honest I bought this just for all of the hot girls in this movie,, and the DVD added it was unrated. but the movie wasn't bad at all , actually had some depth and plot to it,, a real mystery for awhile,, . I think this one would stand alone and really didn't need to be even named poison ivy,, but I really liked the film and was surprise some of the young girls actually could act instead of just look great naked.

Onetime child stars Miriam McDonald and Shawna Waldron go the Alyssa Milano route, trying to prove how grown-up they are by taking their clothes off in a terrible Poison Ivy movie. All the Poison Ivy movies are awful but this one, which doesn't actually have anything to do with any of the others, makes Milano's look like Gone with the Wind by comparison. The story is impossibly dumb. The acting is uniformly pathetic. McDonald and Waldron may look good but their acting skills have not grown with their bodies. McDonald is bad. Waldron is way beyond bad, turning in one of the most atrocious performances ever seen. The supporting players are all pretty much terrible as well. Ryan Kennedy, who plays the guy involved with the two key girls, is particularly lousy. To be fair none of the performers are helped by a script which is mind-boggling in its stupidity. McDonald plays Daisy, an innocent country bumpkin who goes away to college. She gets mixed up with the school's powerful all-female secret society, the Ivies. This group hasn't got the "secret" part of secret society down as they live in a big house right in the middle of campus and everybody knows all about them. Anyhow, Waldron plays Azalea, the key figure in this cabal of stupid girls. Azalea wants some internship, she's afraid Daisy might get it. So Azalea hatches schemes to take Daisy down and claim that precious internship for herself. The story has huge holes in it. It is neither believable nor interesting. The movie slogs along towards the finish, interrupted by occasional skin displays from its two leads because honestly getting them naked is the only reason this movie even exists. The ending somehow manages to be even dumber than everything which preceded it with quite possibly the worst fight sequence in movie history. This is a movie which fails in every possible way. If McDonald and Waldron were hoping for a career boost from this, well ladies I've seen Alyssa Milano and you're no Alyssa Milano.

The first film of this series featured Drew Barrymore as Ivy, a teenage nymphet without any moral scruples using her physical attractions to destroy those who crossed her path. Released in 1992, it incorporated a significant amount of nudity. Two later films have featured Alyssa Milano and Jaime Pressly playing characters with different names but not dis-similar roles. All three films were essentially trashy melodramas, none achieved an IMDb viewer rating above the mid way point; but not because of poor acting, they all gave the career of their star a useful boost. Today however they are barely remembered, most filmgoers asked about one of them would probably scratch their head in bewilderment, and Insight were certainly taking a chance when they decided to make a fourth version of this story two years ago. Unfortunately it did not come off - like its predecessors this is a trashy melodrama with a transparent and overworked story spiced up with eye candy to increase its appeal; but not sure what audience it is really trying to attract. Ivy returns to this film in the guise of a University secret society - the Ivy Women's Society - which has established a dangerous influence on the administrative machinery of the University, and under the guidance of its current President (Azalea, played by Shawna Waldron) is prepared to go to any lengths, including violence if necessary, in order to maintain this. An unsophisticated country girl (Daisy, played by Miriam McDonald) who has decided to seek a University education following the death of her parents, improbably proves to be her most serious obstacle. Unfortunately this is only one of many very serious flaws in the story as presented. For example PI-4 includes a totally ludicrous and unnecessary bondage sequence showing new recruits to the "Secret" Society being tattooed during their initiation.

My TV version of PI-4 incorporated virtually no nudity but the Parent's Guide notes in this database just comprises the comment "nudity throughout". I understand the first release on television was a bowdlerised version, a number of spicy sequences intended to increase its appeal were added for a limited cinema release and later an even more spicy unrated DVD was released. Comments such as that above are of little help to parents in such circumstances. Ideally the Parent's Guide should relate to the cinema release, but once a film has made its rounds in the movie houses most prospective fresh viewers will only see either a heavily cut TV version or a spiced up DVD, probably designed for the young married viewers who rent or buy most DVD's today. These alternatives are as different as chalk from cheese. The TV version of PI-4 runs about 84m and the DVD 95m - for very different reasons neither is suitable for children's viewing. Similarly I have a PG14 version of "Wedding Crashers" which runs for 94 m, the R rated cinema version runs 119m and an unrated DVD 127m - over a third longer. This wide gulf in running times between TV versions and DVD versions for many films which are no longer regularly screened can nullify the value of IMDb Parent's Guide notes even though we all recognise they are of great importance to worried parents. Furthermore, when added sequences in DVD versions are designed to appeal to a different audience, they are often incompatible and spoil whatever appeal the original film had. The DVD of "Alice in Wonderland" (1975) included two different versions - comments on this database show that most viewers preferred the original shorter version, not because it was more suitable for children but because it ran more smoothly. If the Parent's Guide is to continue providing harassed parents with help they feel they can trust, IMDb needs to examine this problem. Often I have wanted to contribute to these guidance notes, but found this almost impracticable because multiple versions of the film exist. Perhaps IMDb could open a blog for further discussion - it would not be relevant here.

My advice is to stay away from either version of PI-4 - the only reason to watch is if you are interested in its two young stars. Here Shawna Waldron played a part which I believe enhanced her reputation as an actress. It reminded me of the part played by Sarah Michelle Geller in Cruel Intentions. Both had to display subtle glances and gestures showing freedom from moral scruples when with cronies, whilst appearing highly moral and demure with all other people - a difficult accomplishment. But, whilst Cruel Intentions was a very good film, Poison Ivy-4 only rates 2 stars.

After the death of her parents, Danielle "Daisy" Brooks (Miriam McDonald) sells the family farm and leaves behind her boyfriend to transfer to Beckshire College. The Ivy Society led by Azalea Berges (Shawna Waldron) dismisses the poor new student until Blake (Ryan Kennedy) takes an interest. The school is still haunted by a female student's mysterious death six months earlier. Magenta is Daisy's film student roommate. Andrew Graves is their political theory professor and Blake's father. Daisy starts working for Blake's mother dean Elisabeth Graves (Catherine Hicks). Azalea wants a prized internship but Daisy has the inside track.

This is most notable for the sexy Icebox. I don't know what else Shawna has done over the years but this is a real eye opening. Otherwise, there is nothing here. This is a weak soft core B-movie and it's not much of a thriller.