Conference bookie::movies

98.0. "Poison" by DSSDEV::RUST () Wed Mar 24 1993 20:48

    The video store didn't have "Bucket of Blood" or "Carnival of Souls,"
    so I rented this. And... it wasn't bad. (Weird, yes - and there are a
    couple of scenes that were serious appetite-suppressors, the details of
    which I shall spare you.)
    
    Directed by Todd Haynes and "interpreted" from the works of Jean Genet,
    "Poison" tells three unrelated (or _are_ they?!?!?) stories, edited
    together in a fashion strongly reminiscent of channel-surfing. One
    story's a rather bleak depiction of a young man in prison, his sexual
    obsession with a fellow inmate, and the singularly unpleasant memories
    of the earlier experiences of both men when they were youths at
    reformatory together. (This one had the most explicit nastinesses in
    it; oddly enough, these were *not* the artfully-mundane prison-rape
    scenes, either...) 
    
    The next tale was a pure-schlock version of the classic "scientist makes
    earth-shaking discovery, accident occurs, scientist is doomed to wear
    ever-increasing quantities of latex and goo" story. The high point here
    was the casting of the heroine, an astonishingly noble *and* perky
    young woman whose love for the oozing hero triumphs - er, well, maybe
    it doesn't exactly _triumph_, but... Oh, never mind. While the conceit
    was cute, this was the least-interesting of the stories in "Poison,"
    though it occasionally gave some kick to the others when it cut to
    (or was cut to from) them at a key moment.
    
    The story I liked the best was filmed in documentary true-crime style,
    and told of the murder of a suburban husband and the disappearance of
    his young son - who, the mother claimed, simply "flew away". Interviews
    with the mother, schoolmates, teachers, etc. soon show a very different
    picture than the idyllic family at first presented... Not that the
    resolution was all that surprising, really, but the story was
    well-told, and the performances - especially by the kids, as they
    testified hesitantly about the mysteriously hate-inducing Richie - were
    quite good. (They didn't mumble as much as real-life kids would, but
    they were still fairly convincing.)
    
    I can't say I found this more than an oddity, but it was a moderately
    interesting oddity.
    
    -b