User reviews

Queer filmmaker Todd Haynes' debut feature POISON dazzles as a multi-faceted cinematic triptych, three segments: Hero, Horror, Homo, all inspired by Jean Genet's novels (with his texts sporadically materialize on the screen as inner beacons), are intertwined altogether yet each is bestowed with a sui generis visual style that speaks volumes of Haynes' eclectic idioms.

Hero takes the form of a grainy and slipshod pseudo-documentary, interviewing sundry characters about a deadly homicide further confounded by a surreal twist, a 7-year-old boy, shoots his father dead and then wondrously flies away from the window witnessed by his mother Felicia (Meeks), various interviewees recounts the boy's aberrant deportment before the incident, some are startlingly perverse, finally, through Felicia's account, the boy's ascension smacks of something punitive and defiant in the face of family dysfunction and violent impulse, rather dissimilar in its undertone and timbre from that WTF upshot in Alejandro González Iñárritu's BIRDMAN (2014, 7.6/10).

Horror, shot in retro-monochrome and abounds with eye-catching Dutch angles, namely is a none- too-engrossing pastiche of the erstwhile B-movies and body horror, a scientist Dr. Thomas Graves (Maxwell), accidentally ingests the serum of "human sexuality" which he has successfully extracted, starts to transmogrify into a leprosy-inflicted monster, and his condition is deadly contagious, which threats lives around him, especially his admirer Dr. Nancy Olsen (Norman), who against all odds, not daunted by his physical deterioration. In comparison, this segment is less savory owing to its own unstimulating camp, where Hero ends with a subjective ascending, the upshot for a beleaguered gargoyle is nothing but plummeting.

Last but not the least, Homo is plainly a more self-reflexive treatment conjured up à la Fassbinder's QUERELLE (1982), another mainstay of queer cinema derived from Genet's text. A prisoner John Broom (Renderer), grows intimate towards the blow-in Jack Bolton (Lyons), whom he has met before during his stint in a juvenile facility of delinquency, Jack's humiliated past emerges inside John's mind, now it is his turn to exert his suppressed libido. This chapter is as homoerotic as one can possibly imagine, a maneuver Haynes would have unwillingly relinquished en route pursuing mainstream acceptance, one tantalizing sequence of Broom groping an asleep Jack is divinely graphic and atmospherically transcendent.

Credited as an experimental juvenilia, POISON throbs with vitality, ambition and knowing archness, though the end result is far from flawless, it potently anticipates many a Haynes' modus operandi, say, the segmental structure and interview-style in I'M NOT THERE. (2007, 8.0/10), his distinct prediction for the photogenic period setting and outfit in FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002, 9.2/10) and CAROL (2015, 8.9/10), not to mention his latest sortie into black-and-white mystique and paralleled storytelling in the Cannes-premiered WONDERSTRUCK (2017).

Not many can embrace perversity as plucky as Mr. Haynes has done, whether it is a tragedy can easily take place around us in real life, or a man living through his most egregious incubus, or a blatantly idealized contest of one's sexuality (motifs like wedding, saliva and scars are all defying their accepted norms), just like a child's stretching hand in the opening credit, Haynes' first directorial outing jauntily treads through many taboo subjects and in retrospect, vindicates that it will be our profound loss if his talent fails to be acknowledged and utilized in full scale.

Filmed in 1990, POISON was an extremely obscure art house film--until Senator Jessie Helms, a hysterical homophobe, threw a public temper tantrum over the fact that it had been financed in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Helm's tirade had the effect of piquing public curiosity, and while it never played mainstream cinemas POISON did indeed go on to a wider release on the art house circuit, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 1991 Sundance Film Festival and receiving an unexpectedly rapid release to the homemarket as well. Thereafter it rapidly returned to the same obscurity from which came.

In a general sense, the film is inspired by the writings of Jean Genet (1910-1986), a French author associated with the existentialist movement. A deliberate outsider, Genet spent so much of his youth in and out of prison that he was ultimately threatened with a life sentence as a habitual criminal. In his writings, Genet fused his homosexual, criminal, and prison adventures into a consistent point of view--one that championed freedom of choice (no matter how unattractive the choice), self-determination (no matter how unfortunate the result), and generally gave the finger to any form of authority (no matter how necessary.) POISON specifically references three of his most celebrated works: OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS, THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSE, and THE THIEF'S JOURNAL, all of which were to some extent autobiographical.

At the same time, the film also references a host of other films--so many that it is sometimes difficult to know whether a single reference is deliberate or simply a fluke, an effect that Genet himself would have likely admired. The most obvious of these references is D.W. Griffith's 1916 silent masterpiece INTOLERANCE, for like that film POISON tells three distinctly stories, cross-cutting between them that they might heighten each other. Unlike INTOLERANCE, however, each story is also told in a distinctly different cinematic style, and these too seem to reference various other films.

The first of these stories, HOMO, is very specifically drawn from Genet. It tells the story of a constant criminal and homosexual who, while in prison, meets a man whose repeated sexual humiliation he witnessed when both were children in a reformatory. He forces the man, who is unwilling mainly due to fear than from morality, into an emotional relationship and later rapes him. The "present" sequences are shot in a murky half-light, the prison presented as a labyrinth of potential sexual destruction. When the prisoner recalls his youthful past, however, the tone changes to a surrealistic and extremely artificial beauty--not unlike that seen in such films as James Bidgood's PINK NARCISSUS and Fassbinder's QUERELLE. It is worth pointing out that these different styles are ironic in use: although shot darkly, the events of the "present" sequence are only mildly shocking in comparison with the events of the "past" sequence, which is shot in a bright and rather romantic style.

HORROR references the 1950s and early 1960s cinematic style of such "B" directors as William Castle and Roger Corman, and it frequently borrows cinematic ideas from Rod Sterling's television series THE TWILIGHT ZONE. In this particular tale, a scientist has labored to isolate the essence of the human sex drive--and succeeds only to ingest the element by accident. With human sex drive raging out of control in his body, he develops oozing sores, and his physical contacts with others spread the condition. It is difficult not to read this as a reference to the AIDS epidemic.

The third story, HERO, is actually presented very much like a modern television news story and is told through a series of interviews. Here, a young boy has shot his father--and then, according to his mother, leaps from the window sill and simply flies away. Neighbors comment: the boy exposed himself. School teachers comment: the boy was unnatural, the boy was normal, the boy was creative, the boy was a liar. A doctor comments: it is possible the boy had a, er, disease of the genitals. As the story progresses the layers add up--but it leaves us without clearcut answers, much less a clearcut response, and in this last respect it is exactly like the other two stories.

It is extremely, extremely difficult to know how to react to POISON. It has moments of remarkable beauty, but these are coupled with moments of equally remarkably off-putting disgust. It is often an erotic film, but the eroticism is tinged and occasionally saturated with revulsion. And in all of this it is remarkably true to its original source: Genet, whose works typically provoke exactly the same sense of beauty, disgust, sensuality, revulsion, and uncertainty of response. I cannot say that I like POISON, which was the directorial debut of Todd Haynes, presently best known for FAR FROM HEAVEN--but then, it is not that sort of film; it does not invite you like it, but rather to consider it both in whole and in part. It strives to be interesting, and in that it is often quite successful.

Unfortunately, it may also be a little too interesting for its own good. While it certainly has its visceral moments, occasionally to the gag point, it asks us to solve a puzzle from which pieces are missing. This not a necessarily a bad thing, but in the case of POISON too many pieces have gone astray; it seems deliberately unsolvable. This may actually be intentional, but if so it was a mistake. A sense of mystery is one thing, but mystification is another, and given its overall strangeness--not to mention the subject matter--I think it very, very unlikely that it will ever have more than curiosity appeal outside an art house audience.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

After reading a bit about Todd Haynes' "Poison" and the homosexual comparisons that people seem to only be drawing from it, I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't deserve to just be tagged as a seminal film of the "new queer cinema". It's so much more than that.

First of all, I found "Homo" to be the least intriguing of the 3 stories. "Hero" is actually more disturbing, showing the sudden disappearance of a mentally-inflicted, patricidal child who, according to his mother, was sent from the angels. I was particularly impressed by Haynes' creative use of layering in the adultery and spanking scenes.

But, in blending three prominent aspects (color, black and white, documentary) of the film medium into his film, the beautiful b&w "Horror" is the most notable, showing the sudden downfall of a scientist's prosperity. Haynes conveys the scientist's hysteria to his audience by using slanted, extreme close-up camera techniques and spastic editing, not to mention a haunting soundtrack.

The film is a bizarre one, indeed... but undeniably artful, and it certainly doesn't deserve to simply be pigeonholed into nothing more than a cornerstone for homosexual cinema.

Odd, disturbing film tells three tales--"Hero" is shot in documentary style and deals with a 7 year old who shoots his father and flies away--"Horror" deals with a scientist who, by mistake, drinks a "hormone" liquid which slowly turns him into a monster and infects other people--"Homo" is about a gay prisoner and his strong attraction to another prisoner. All the acting is good, all the sequences are shot in completely different styles using different film stocks and the movie is engrossing. But, it's not exactly a pleasant film. It's sickening at times (the scientist's transformation; a real sick "game" a bunch of boys enact on another) making it a real chore to watch. Still, Todd Haynes is one hell of a director. I never saw his next film "Safe" but I did see "Velvet Goldmine" which was very good also. This one is worth seeing, but you have to have a strong stomach and not be bothered by STRONG homoerotic imagery. The NC-17 rating is well-earned.

I rented this movie because I heard it was extremely provocative and surreal, but it actually turned out to be pretty boring. The homosexuality in the prison story was totally irresponsibly portrayed. The only good segment in the movie was the kid who murdered his father.

This film is probably best viewed as part of a film class (and not necessarily one on Queer Cinema although Todd Haynes prefers gentlemen).

I prefer "Safe" and also "Far From Heaven" from this clearly talented director. His suave incorporation of 50's style sci-fi and 80's TV docudrama and a stagey prison play is more engaging here than the three intercut stories themselves.

The film starts with an actor going out a window, and ends with a similar scene. There is a moment in the sci-fi "Horror" substory where the lead mutters "And so it begins..." Temporally what would have followed is the scene that actually does start the film.

Despite a low budget, Haynes does employ a lot of clever camera tricks and cinematic tacks. He squeezes out some efficient acting from his mostly unknown cast. (Okay, that was John Leguizamo in for two scenes...)

If anything, I feel Haynes could have spent more money on lighting. The B&W sci-fi shots were often heavy on the B, and much of the prison footage was a darker shade of murky, at least on DVD at home.

But then one of the displayed Jean Genet quotes speaks of the necessary darkness for the seed of dream. The stories here may be genetically Genet, I am more familiar with who he was in person than in print. Again for a student of Genet, I think this would be a more satisfying expenditure of time, thought and money than it was for myself.

There's also a socio-political bent to the release and funding of this film. Rev. Donald Wildmon provided protest and thus inadvertent P.R. for "Poison." Meanwhile others cite an AIDS angle to the movie.

For me, I walked a way with a sense of sex linked with shame. A child catches his mother in infidelity, prison passion is stolen in the shadows, lasciviousness makes lepers of a community. Also while not the focus, each episode had some sex entwined with violence. Sex was portrayed as anything but erotic throughout.

Ultimately I could not make out whether Haynes was trying to decry society's reaction to sexual "deviancy" as more dangerous than said deviancy; or if he was just trying to revel in sordid shock? I doubt the latter, probably he wanted to take the challenge of presenting Genet to audiences today. Better than another modern take on Shakespeare surely.

But while Genet's writings were surely scandalous in his day, what about Haynes' audience now? I realize that there are still throngs of folks who fear thongs...much less anything as pointed as a penis.

Yes those folks are out there, I just don't know any of them...and I doubt I'll be wresting a copy of "Poison" from their hands at the local videodrome any time soon. We keep our distance, I recommend you keep your distance from this disk as well. I do think such distance and decorum can exist....along with same sex marriage.

So unless you are assigned to watch it, to study it... choose another "Poison."

5/10

Well, this is indeed a pretty weird mix of three seemingly unrelated stories, the debut feature film by Todd Haynes. I had seen nothing by him before, but I've been interested in seeing 'Safe' (1995) for a while now. And his recent film 'Carol' really seems worth a watch as well. I have 'Velvet goldmine' on DVD as well, but I'm not sure about that one, for more personal - rather inexplicable - reasons, I suppose.

Back to 'Poison'. I found the whole thing to be pretty intriguing, though I'm not sure how it should all relate (other than the obvious human state of misery). A quote from the film, a certain statement about something being a lie and the truth at the same time, struck a cord with me; the film seems to be the director's attempt to put something really personal out there, but at the same time he hopes it pertains to something essential. A bit vague, I'll admit, but I'll comfortably leave it at that: I liked it quite a bit, even if things (altogether) didn't make sense, completely.

The individual stories, about a boy killing his father, a man in prison meeting an 'old' friend and a scientist who simply makes a big mistake, somehow blended together well enough, reminding me of several other directors' films, such as Guy Maddin (haven't seen much of him - shame on me), Tom Kalin^ and John Paizs.

So... a fine little gem it is: 8 out of 10.

^ Strangely enough, Kalin made a rather cult-ish debut film a few years before Haynes did, then Haynes did a much more straightforward (but certainly not mainstream, either) follow-up drama with Julianne Moore in the lead, and then - guess what - years later Kalin did the just the same...

The art-house buffs may appraise this film, but to me it's a load of gibberish. I saw Todd Haynes' first film, a short called "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story." Despite the fact that it was performed by Barbie dolls (no, I'm not joking or overstating), it's 10 times better than this trash. At least that movie had creativity.

From a technical standpoint, the film isn't bad. "Poison" is well-acted and the cinematography is pretty good, except for the prison sequences. I'm sure the dim lighting was an aesthetic decision, but the images in those sequences were barely visible. The script is an incoherent mess. The way the stories intersect is all over the map, unlike the slick way it was done in movies like "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs." Many were bothered by the film's overt depiction of homosexual themes (Haynes being gay himself). That didn't bother me. "Poison" is self-indulgent, disgusting, appalling and an overall nightmare to sit through. Whether the director was gay or straight doesn't matter. It's still a mess. I'll never understand why this movie won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Todd Haynes first full-length film was a triptych of stories inspired not only by the novels of Jean Genet but also by the schlock-horror B-Movies of the fifties and sixties. Sex, primarily homosexuality, is the main theme and is presented both poetically and with a good deal of self-deprecating humor, (one tale, modeled on "The Fly", is obviously about AIDS), and prefigures much of Haynes later work; "Far from Heaven" isn't far from the surface in the presentation of the story about a boy who kills his father and literally flies away. It's certainly not commercial and was clearly aimed at a specific art-house audience but it marked a breakthrough both in Independent American Cinema and in LGBT cinema. It also marked Haynes out as a major talent and someone to watch.

Difficult to understand why this film has been accorded such praise, except perhaps due to its being an early film explicitly addressing gay issues. 26 years later, it seems crudely made and quite tedious, with much of it impressing this viewer as a very poor attempt at recreating the atmosphere of old Hollywood Film Noir or a 50s TV melodrama. Each of the three stories seemed like caricatures with little of any compelling interest.

Poison, the first theatrical film of Todd Haynes, is a grotesque, pessimistic, and extremely disturbing picture that is both celebration of misery and cruelty and a reflection of human tenderness and sexual freedom. The film interweaves three very different stories together into one narrative line. The film goes back and forth between each story, and each story is completely different from one another in theme, content, style, musical choice, genre, and tone. One story, titled 'Horror', is shot in the style of a 50s B-horror film and is about a scientist who manages to alienate the human sex drive into a vial of fluid. Unfortunately, he accidentally drinks the fluid and mutates into a blistering pile of pus and proceeds to go on an infectious rampage, spreading his disease to all he comes into contact with. Another story, titled 'Homo', is a sinister, gritty, muddy, and emotionally tender love story set in an underground prison of some kind in which two male prisoners slowly descend into an obsessive and violent S&M relationship. The story contains flashbacks to their traumatic youth. The remaining story, titled 'Hero', is shot in what appears to be a documentary format in which several members of a distraught community are interviewed about a recent bizarre tragedy involving a disturbed family. A little boy named Richard shoots his sexually abusive father and then flies out the window, and the entire incident was witnessed by his mother who considers her son to be an angel sent from God to watch over her.

Poison is a rather strangely enchanting film. One of the most enchanting things about it is that it never quite gives you any time to breathe. From frame one, the film plunges you into a world full of cruelty and chaotic confusion and you're left on your own to pretty much sort through the images. It's all rather elegantly pulled off. Haynes manages to capture a lot of the charm and the overall structure from each film medium his stories represent. With 'Hero' he manages to present that optimistic 50s family sitcom outlook gone slightly wrong found in David Lynch's Blue Velvet. He does this by using a lot of bright colors and simplistic architecture. The effect is unsettling, but it is also strangely hypnotic in it's own weird way. By using mostly mastershots and by allowing a little more time for talking heads, he's able to create a real creepy sense of foreboding fury that fits really well with the other two stories. With 'Homo', he uses a lot of low angles and close-ups. He also uses more natural lighting, at least in the scenes that aren't flashbacks. It's a much more testosterone driven story, and so the dark look really helps to highlight a lot of the sweatier, more vulnerable aspects of the bodies of these characters. This adds a much more psychological aspect of male sexuality to the film that carries over to the other two stories, making 'Hero' seem ever so slightly more perverted to the average viewer and making 'Horror' seem a lot more metaphorical and realistic in some ways. With 'Horror', we get the bleakest and most disturbing tale of the three. In order to create that classic horror movie feel, Todd Haynes uses a lot more fade-outs, more specific music cues, and noticeably melodramatic narration. He allows us to really feel sorry for this disturbed character, and that feeling of uncleanliness pervades the rest of the film as a result.

It seems to me that Haynes wanted to create this film in order to develop an intricate puzzle of how genre pictures can manipulate other genre pictures, the viewing experience of each picture, how watching one sort of theme in one picture can invisibly affect a separate viewing of another picture, and to recreate the style of multiple viewing itself. His personal reasons for making this film, however, seem to be much more complicated. Poison is what I would consider the quintessential gay picture. It has everything I love and hate about most gay themed films (the depressing endings, the perverted camera-work, the abundant strange behavior, the gratuitous sex), but it's self-awareness is so fun to watch that it rises above all the schlock and finds it's own path toward narrative freedom.

Above all, Poison is a masterpiece. Along with In a Glass Cage, If...., My Own Private Idaho, Mysterious Skin, and the films of Derek Jarman, it's one of the more challenging gay themed films that you're likely to see. Even if the subject matter disturbs you, there is still so much to digest in terms of imagery and in the wonderful music score. Even if you put aside all that, however, you still have one of the most unusual storytelling structures you will likely see for this kind of film. You can spend the entire film just studying the structure and you will learn so much about scene and theme composition. Even putting aside THAT, however, the ambition of the film is enough to admire. I find that there is way too much going on here that can simply be written off. The things I've noticed upon re-watching this film have chilled me to the bone, and watching it only makes me want to watch it again. It's one of those films that really hit the right notes with me. I will admit that the first time I watched it I couldn't quite comprehend it. It is a dizzying film in that sense, and I don't expect most viewers to digest a lot of the imagery on their first viewing. However, it's a film that I think really says a lot about human progress in terms of sex, imagination, violence, and physical desire. It's a powerful film with a lot of quiet emotion with an ending that left me feeling very polarized. Watching it once is simply not enough.

*to read more, go to cuddercityfilmchronicles.blogspot.com*

Despite this film receiving a lot of negative feed back from a lot of its viewers, I think the film is a truly provocative experience. Granted this film is definitely not everyones cup of tea to say the least, but it operates beyond entertainment. It is not there to be liked or disliked, it is there to be analysed and that is where the enjoyment comes into play.

The film is constructed of 3 stories; the homo, the horror and the hero. Spread out over three different time periods. If any one is thinking The Hours or 21grams think again, its not. This is a much slower paced film and for want of a better word, 'duller' than the two previously mentioned films.

Upon first viewing of the film, it appears that the three characters share no apparent link. However, each story acts as a metaphor for a wider issue, which does connect them all. I wont say what it is, thats your job! Overall poison is a very clever work of art, which belongs to the sub genres of expose and art-house. So if you enjoy those types of films and are interested in queer cinema go watch it! Finally I think Todd Haynes is a genius, a true auteur.

Okey dokey, first i have to admit i didn't watch this movie under the best of circumstances really, on the free Filmrise Sci-fi channel, where one can find all kinds of movies, from extremely mediocre to uber masterpieces of the industry, at the expense of being interrupted every few minutes to be tortured by mostly badly made and annoying ads that --luckily enough-- aren't played in their full versions at that, much to the relative relief of the viewer of course! ;-)

long story short, reading some of the 7***+ as well as all the -4*** reviews here, i just have to agree with the latter ones!

longer story cut even shorter, please let me finish the blah with the following statement:

"You can be a smarty-pants director, but that won't matter if the movie doesn't work emotionally as well as intellectually." - Todd Haynes

31 Days of Spookoween: DAY ELEVEN

Film #11: Poison (1991)

Review: It feels both right and wrong to classify Todd Haynes' brilliant feature film debut "Poison" as a horror film. It is unlike any other film that would fit into the genre (although one of its three segments obviously replicates the sci-fi/horror B-Movies of the 1950's), and yet it is still spine tingling and disturbing and, in all honestly, occasionally horrific. But, it is many other things as well, a long list of adjectives taking up line after line could easily be the remainder of this very review. One moment may have some fittingly mild black comedy, while the next may be a poignant love scene, while the nest may be gripping, while the next may be terrifying, while the next may be madly surrealistic. It's deftly unpredictable and oddly engaging, not a minute is wasted and the pacing feels like a gentle breeze that suddenly morphs into a Hellish blaze of howling wind.

Back in the early 90's when the film was first released, it was rather infamous. Hotly debated and heavily controversial, the film was met with outrage from some, and a totally unreasonable NC-17 rating from the MPAA. Yes, it is true that this film tackles heavy themes, particularly those that deal frankly and explicitly with homosexuality, and there are some brief flashes of rather strong sexual imagery, but the film never dwells upon anything that is at all "obscene" or "vulgar". Often, these "dirtier" sequences evoke a feeling much different than lust...they evoke feelings of pain and heart ache and horror and beauty, there's never the sense that what you're watching is in any way "filth"; no, everything feels tasteful and necessary and meaningful, and this creates an experience filled with enigmas and experiments and romances and an overall entirely unique expression of the pains, pleasures, and paranoia that comes with human sexuality.

To me the only part that was worth at all was the "Homo" part. And I'm not saying that because I am a homo myself. It's just the only part that felt and sounded realistic. Well, maybe the other 2 are just allegories and I am too stupid or down-to-earth to get what they really meant to say ? Well, Jean Genet is not an easy writer and using some f his works for a movie is no easy task, but the movie keeps mixing the 3 parts throughout and not only is it confusing but it does become annoying after a short time. I guess on the whole you could say the movie lacks consistency. Sorry there are parts I could not help watching with my finger on fast forward.

Make sure that you are not tired when watching this film. Although this film introduces some outstanding performances by some little known actors, the film falls short. One of the three short stories of the film is shot in black and white and is strangely reminiscient of David Lynch's masterpiece "The Elephant Man." When Dr. Graves is ordered out to the fire-escape, I was just waiting for him to shout, "I'm not an animal; I'm a human being." The prisoner story, unlike the black and white story, is full of emotion and intensity. Issues such as homosexuality, abuse, and longing for love are enmeshed in this tale. The third story is shot documentary style. An unseen interviewer questions neighbors, family, and friends about the events leading up to the shooting and death of an abusive father. This movie will intrigue you, confuse you, and bother you. It's worth a watch.

Todd Haynes became well known with his film "Poison", which was successful at the Sundance film festival. What I like about "Poison" is that is not another stereotypical gay film. It contains three separate stories, all shown out of sequence. So it's like watching three bizarre surrealist films within one movie. One story "Hero" is a mockumentary which deals with a young boy and his abusive father. After killing his dad, he mysteriously flies away. Another story deals with a disease like epidemic, which seems to be symbolic of aids. This part is filmed in a style of a campy 50's sci-fi film. The man drinks some sort of potion and is given the disease. A colleague still loves him even though he's infected. Then the last story "Homo" deals with two men in prison and their homosexual relationship. These two guys have known each other from their youth and the one has flashbacks of the torment he has faced. "Poison" is a unique experimental masterpiece of queer cinema, reminiscent of Derek Jarmon. The film went through much controversy with its NC-17 rating. But really, there's R-rated films which are much worse. "Poison" is definitely not a film for everyone, but if your looking for something strange and different you'll probably enjoy it.

Poison was a total snooze fest. I had trouble even keeping awake it was so dull. The director is so obviously trying to make an art film that it jumped over the line into pretentious boredom. Not just over the line, either, but miles over it, whole degrees of longitude over it, light-years over the line into the land of pretentious boredom.

The three stories don't hang together in any way, and the frequent cutting back and forth between them wasn't made to be interesting or unusual - it was just cuts back and forth between scenes. The stories themselves may have been interesting in some other film, but here they are made incredibly dull. Inescapably dull. So dull that you begin to think of grocery shopping, trash hauling, ice melting, exciting stuff like that.

The actors are excellent in their roles, it's only too bad that their roles were so shallow and pointless. The directing is at fault here, and not just a little. Nothing spells "I'm trying to make this an art film" like frequent black and white. You might as well have put it in the opening credits. The heavy use of shadow and dark rooms to obscure the camera view - didn't they teach that in Film Making 101? Yeah, it was the chapter called "how to make your movie pretentious beyond belief".

In any case, you can like art-house films without having to watch puerile junk like this.

Poison, a trilogy of interesting vignettes portraying a wide array of emotions, insecurities, societal issues. After viewing the movie once, I had to see it again to fully appreciate all the subliminal messages contained therein. Scott Renderer, gives an intense portrayal as a prisoner. Renderer is an actor who should have received more attention for his performance by producers and directors seeking actors who are not only attractive to potential audiences but honestly talented and a master of his craft. It may have been 8 years since this performance, but more of Renderer in the new Millennium would be a good thing!

One of the more nauseating movies that I skipped through recently. No redeeming qualities. The director seems unable to tell a story without resorting to some revolting scenes ("memorable") that merely highlight the lack of even a modicum of entertainment value. Seems that the artsy crowd judge such work by the amount of torture that normal folks cannot endure.