Memorable, crazy movie

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The first film I have ever seen that is three different genre's of film in one. Three stories that only abstractly connect in theme are weaved together, one is mockumentary about a boy who shot his father and then flew out of the window, the other is a black and white Roger Cormanesque science fiction horror film about a mad scientist who distills the sex drive and becomes an infectious leperous monster, while the other is about an obsessive abusive sexual relationship between two prison inmantes. The latter plot almost got the film banned after the complaints of religious groups, because it shows an erect penis. If you likewise are afraid or made uncomfortable by explicit sexuality you will be ruffled by this. If not you may find this fascinating, challenging, and provacotive. A one of a kind film, about the awesome and divergent power of human sexuality.

Todd Haynes is one of those directors whom I've come across with due to his more recent works (FAR FROM HEAVEN) but with whose earlier work I was totally unfamiliar with. If anyone would have told me that POISON was part of his filmography, I wouldn't have known -- that's how obscure this movie is. At a brief 85 minutes, it tells the three separate vignettes, all of them loosely based on the writings of Jean Genet: "Hero" presents a mockumentary of a boy who shoots his father and then flies away. Of course, we later learn out why. "Horror" ventures into science-fiction territory and has a 1950s feel (down to the cheap-looking make-up, wooden acting, and bad dialogue), in which a scientist extracts a hormone that not only unleashes his sexual desires, but turns him into a monster and thus sets free a mutating virus not unlike AIDS. The third installment is the one which most closely resembles the writing of Genet: "Homo" is a gay love story complete with male rituals and lots of repression set in prison and is the only one of the three to feature actual homoerotic content -- but has one very nauseating sequence in which one character's demons come to light in a flashback sequence in a juvenile detention that involves spitting into one of the character's mouth (and John Leguizamo, as excellent as he is as an actor, portrays sheer nastiness as one of the inmates who is enjoying himself a little too much). It is the most disturbing of the three and the one I least connected with, mainly because for obvious reasons it was fetishistic and implausible as well as humiliating. It's the only one of the three to make me feel like an outsider when venturing into gay-themed stories: for some reason I find that this sort of tale, where games of extreme humiliation seem to be rampant in gay erotica. Even so, POISON might be of some interest to those interested in gay-themed cinema, but it should be approached with a caveat for anyone a little sensitive to the degrading behavior that "Homo" offers.

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.

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.