Film

Poison Ivy

Name: Poison Ivy
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Released: 1992
Cast: Drew Barrymore, Tom Skerritt, Sara Gilbert, Cheryl Ladd, Alan Stock

Coming-of-age

A sleek 1992 thriller where Drew Barrymore plays a manipulative seductress who infiltrates a wealthy household through an unsuspecting teenage friend. It's a taut game of psychological dominance dressed in 90s eroticism—the kind of film that made people uncomfortable in theaters and still knows exactly which buttons to push. For anyone who enjoys morally murky characters and domestic power plays.

TMDb rating

2.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy slow-burn domestic thrillers where the menace hides behind politeness and a sun-warmed suburban surface, and you don't mind a manipulator whose charm is the weapon.

Skip it if you want a restrained, subtle thriller; this one leans into lurid, sun-bleached melodrama and a pulpy tone that can feel glossy and overheated, more soap than suspense.

What it asks of you: Brisk at ninety-two minutes, it keeps its attention on surfaces, so you need to catch small looks and rituals rather than settle into a long, unhurried build.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Basic Instinct1992

The same year, same transgressive energy. A mysterious woman destabilizes everyone around her through sex and intellect. Verhoeven's direction is icier and the plot twists sting harder.

But The sexual politics feel dated now, and it commits fully to its own excess in ways that might feel silly rather than thrilling.

The Babysitter2017

A modern, meta take on the seduction-and-sabotage playbook. Sharp, darkly funny, and trades 90s eroticism for outright horror. Cole sprouse is brilliantly trapped.

But It's much more tongue-in-cheek than Poison Ivy, which some prefer but others find diminishes the stakes.

Cruel Intentions1999

Wealthy teenagers using sex as a weapon in a Manhattan mansion. Sarah Michelle Gellar is a calculating ice queen. It understands the Laclos DNA better and gives everyone something to do.

But By the third act it softens its own moral clarity, and the nostalgia has calcified the film a bit.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Poison Ivy

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Videodrome1983

Both explore seduction as a tool that breaks down the boundary between self and other; both are about being remade by another person's will, but Videodrome makes that literal and psychic rather than social and sexual.

Cronenberg's fractured descent into desire and manipulation through screens. A man is seduced by images and ideas that rewire his reality. Like Poison Ivy filtered through body horror and corporate conspiracy—same grammar of seduction destroying the self, utterly different language.

But It's visceral, disturbing, and philosophically abstract. If you want plot clarity and conventional thrills, this will frustrate you.

The Grifters1990

Con artists and seduction as survival strategy, with Annette Bening as a woman who weaponizes sex against men twice her age. Scorsese's energy, genuine danger, no sentimentality.

But It's grittier and older than Poison Ivy, and the story is deliberately unglamorous.

Wild Things1998

Another 90s thriller about seduction and schemes with real twists. Denise Richards and Kevin Bacon in a Florida noir. If you want the exact same itch scratched.

But It leans harder into exploitation and the plot gymnastics eventually become the whole point.

A Streetcar Named Desire1951

Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh trapped in a small space where seduction and power are currency. Tennessee Williams' language and the sexual tension are almost physical. The spiritual ancestor of every room-based psychological thriller.

But The pacing and Technicolor melodrama won't feel like the sleek 90s game you want.

Swoon1992

Tom Kalin's audacious film about Leopold and Loeb, two charismatic men using sex and intellect to manipulate and destroy. Black-and-white, provocative, genuinely unsettling. Released the same year.

But It's arthouse and makes no concession to narrative clarity. The subject matter is deeply dark.

The Last Seduction1994

Linda Fiorentino is a con artist who uses sex as a tool of economic survival. Faster and meaner than Poison Ivy. Noir sensibility in a modern setting.

But It's hardboiled to the point of coldness; there's no one to root for, which is the point but not everyone's point.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both center on a seduction that is also a kind of possession; both explore how a charismatic person can make you complicit in your own unraveling.

Lynch's three-hour labyrinth about ambition, seduction, and identity in Los Angeles. A woman befriends an aspiring actress and their relationship contains mysteries that unwind backwards. The psychological manipulation is real and the emotional stakes are devastating.

But It's long, deliberately disorienting, and the narrative collapses into dream logic. You have to be willing to feel lost.

The Housemaid2010

Same structure of infiltration, same weapon of intimate knowledge, but Housemaid is about the architecture of servitude and Poison Ivy is about the architecture of desire—different angles on how access becomes power.

Park Chan-wook's gorgeous, vicious film about a woman hired to work in a wealthy household who slowly takes control through service and proximity. Korean cinema's answer to the seduction-and-sabotage game—colder, more architectural, and far more cruel about class.

But It's slow and ritualistic, with long stretches where nothing seems to happen. The payoff is conceptual, not narrative.