Fatal Attraction Ep. 06 - Poison Ivy / The Crush

Things get a little sleazy this week as we take a look at two movies where the dangerous stranger... is a teenage girl.   First, we’ll explore 1992’s POISON IVY starring Drew Barrymore, Sara Gilbert and Tom Skerritt. Then we’ll follow that up with THE CRUSH (1993) featuring Alicia Silverstone and Cary Elwes.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
you oh
Hello and welcome to Get Me Another, a podcast where we explore those movies that followedin the wake of blockbuster hits and attempted to replicate their success.
My name is Chris Iannicot and with me is my co-host Rob Lemorgas.

(00:23):
Energy never dies, it just changes form, Chris.
Well, I have heard that's true.
don't exactly know what that means, that is a scientific principle, which is very excitingthat we bring that knowledge to the table here at Get Me Another.
Yeah, man.

(00:44):
It's just something to keep in mind when you're driving with the convertible top down.
you know what, and always wear your seatbelt.
That's an important thing.
You know, that's, you can find that out the hard way.
Especially in the rain.
Especially in the rain.
need to not be...
It's slippery!
It is.
Well, nothing, there's no drainage here in Los Angeles.
Nothing drains.

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Today is our sixth episode in our Get Me Another Fatal Attraction series, and afterseveral weeks of a few fairly chased films, our thrillers got a little more erotic last
week with Single White Female.
So, we'll see if that trend continues this week with two films where the stranger whocomes into protagonist's lives

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is a very attractive teenage girl.
Spoiler alert this week is very sleazy.
It's very I'm just going to tell you right now, it's super sleazy.
So first up today from 1992 is Poison Ivy.

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average.
I'm slipping in biology.
name's Sylvie Cooper.
Like most 15 year olds, what Sylvie Cooper wanted more than anything else was a bestfriend.
Everybody hates me.
Oh, everybody hates me too.
Do to come over?
Someone to talk to.
Wow, this is great.
Someone to

(02:19):
This is my mom, Georgie.
Till death.
Someone like Ivy.
It's nice and cool in here.
Um, I missed my ride.
No.
Dad, she's my best friend.
But Ivy didn't just want a friend.
Ivy wanted more.

(02:41):
sports car.
I had a family, a home.

(03:38):
As you just said, my first note, literally the first thing I wrote down for Poison Ivy iswe open with this image of Drew Barrymore on a rope swing wearing cowboy boots and this
very short dress and the reveal of a tattoo of a cross covered with poison ivy was, oh,we're in sleazy town now.

(03:58):
Yeah, but it is it's like elevated sleazy town because it's kind of in slow motion alittle bit, right?
yeah, yeah.
Honestly, this is a strange movie because it's one that I'm not sure it knows what itwants to be and I think it kind of struggles as a consequence.
I wonder if the filmmakers knew what it wanted to be and the producers wanted somethingelse.

(04:20):
I don't know that.
Yeah.
And, you know, and this movie has some history with Drew Barrymore's feelings about itlater in life now.
Yeah.
Wishing that, you know, or being surprised, I think at least that she was allowed to dothis movie.
I do think that there's a big divide between what was released theatrically in the UnitedStates and the unrated cut.

(04:44):
I watched the unrated cuts, because every once in a while you'd go to the slightly lowerquality footage where it was like SD up-converted footage, but honestly, mean, you know,
it didn't feel like there were, like, I've seen unrated cuts that were a heck of a lotmore unrated than that.
No, from from the viewpoint of just regular movie, sure.

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From the viewpoint of the age of Drew Barrymore when she filmed this, there's that one bitof unrated footage with Tom Skerritt having sex with her from behind, for instance.
It's like and what I find very interesting just to puzzle this all together into things isthat Cheryl Ladd, I'm sure you're getting there.

(05:30):
But anyway, Cheryl Ladd plays
Georgina.
Yeah.
The mother is ill of this very crazy family and her daughter Jordan lad.
Her mother was very strict when Jordan did cabin fever.
Oh, in the early 2000s that Jordan would not do nudity.

(05:51):
And I wonder if having some experience uh of seeing Drew Barrymore on the set had anythingto do with that.
I'm sure it wasn't the only piece of the puzzle.
Sure.
But yeah, so anyway, just all interesting little tidbits of, know, cause these are, youknow, sometimes we watch these things and you think, yeah, actors and characters and all

(06:12):
that, but these are like people, they're not puppets or something.
You know?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Poison Ivy was directed by Kat Shea and written by Shea and her then husband Andy Rubin.
Shea started out as an actress.
She directed a number of pictures for Roger Corman, including Stripped to Kill, Dance ofthe Damned, and Streets.

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Our friends over at the New World Pictures podcast did a terrific interview with Kat Sheaabout her Roger Corman days that is well worth checking out.
Producers Melissa Goddard and Peter Morgan actually originally brought the idea to NewLine who were actively seeking, and I quote, a teenage fatal attraction.
So that is very much what this movie, that is the acorn of this movie.

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I'm not sure it quite gets there, because there's some really weird choices that we'll getinto, but it's like that was what they were going for.
Well, this is definitely a movie that is in part a teenage fatal attraction, but thismovie and we've talked about this a little over before the show.
This movie has a tiger fighting a bear inside of it and the the tiger is teenage fatalattraction, but the bear is this completely different movie about the, you know, the

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psychic breakdown and needs of this troubled teen and trying.
for her trying to connect with family and specifically Ivy's connection with Sylvie,other, uh you know, the daughter in the movie of the family.
And, you know, there, I actually really, really like that movie.
uh The other movie is fine.

(07:49):
Like it's like, I really enjoyed Poison Ivy, even with all the caveats of, you know, noteveryone involved in the making of this maybe is super happy about it.
It's certainly an interesting movie.
Oh, yeah.
It's not, it has that going for it.
It is not boring.
The film stars Drew Barrymore, Sarah Gilbert, Tom Skerritt and Cheryl Ladd.

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Drew Barrymore obviously came from an acting family.
Her grandfather was John Barrymore, who was a very famous actor during the early 20thcentury.
She grew up in Los Angeles.
She was a child actress appearing in movies like ET.
and fire starter.
And this was one of her early adult roles coming during a very tempestuous time in herlife, to say the least.

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So it's not unlike, like the way this film kind of reflects, you know, like what was goingon in her personal, it's not unlike Rob Lowe's role in Bad Influence, reflecting aspects
of his personal life.
Absolutely.
The role is trading off what was happening in the tabloids at the time, the coverage ofDrew Barrymore and how her life was being positioned for people to consume.

(09:01):
Right.
As you know, almost in the way these tabloids are, you know, it's like they're makingpersonal lives into spectacle for people to buy.
Thankfully, we don't do that anymore.
No, no, that never happens anymore.
mean, the interesting thing about Drew Barrymore is she, whatever she was going through atthat particular time in her life, she clearly worked through it, has gone on to be a very

(09:25):
successful actress and producer and director and talk show host and all of that.
you know, she kind of came out the other side in a way that many people don't.
Yeah.
And, know, by all accounts, at least hopefully a happy human being where, you know, uh,you know, we all have bad things in our lives and you gotta get through.

(09:46):
Sure.
So the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 1992, where it wasnominated for the Grand Jury Prize.
It then had a limited release in about 20 theaters in May of that year, grossing a littleunder $2 million, making it one of the lower grossing movies in this series.
But then, like many of the films we've discussed, it did very well on home video and cabletelevision, eventually spawning a whole

(10:15):
Poison Ivy franchise, you know, in the direct to video realm, which I'll talk abouttowards the end, because there's some really fascinating stuff with that.
What's very interesting is that in some ways that 90s boom in home video first on VHS andthen later on DVD, there was this whole market of movies that really they didn't even

(10:39):
intend to go in theaters.
I don't know that this was one of them because this was a little early on.
uh it's not dissimilar from the streaming only films that happen now.
I guess the only difference is you got residuals off those tapes.
Right.
So the film starts out with Drew Barrymore on a rope swing, as I mentioned, it's swingingout over this canyon, ravine, a small gully maybe.

(11:07):
Honestly, from the way it was shot, and they keep coming back to several times, I couldn'ttell how deep it was or even how dangerous.
I'm like, either that's like a, you know, a 10 foot fall and you don't want to do itbecause you might break your ankle or it's, you know, plummet to your doom.
I couldn't tell whi-
couldn't tell how deep it went either Chris.
How deep does the destruction and the betrayal go?

(11:33):
uh We are in the perfect headspace for this movie today.
uh Apparently this ravine with the rope swing is where all the kids hang out, includingSylvie Cooper played by Sarah Gilbert.
Gilbert at the time was starring as Darlene on the sitcom Roseanne, and it is hercharacter that will serve as the narrator of the film.
And I have to say, I really like her narration.

(11:55):
Like she genuinely sounds like a 90s kind of above average intelligence despondent.
teenage girl.
it's like, you know, this is a girl who would read poetry, but maybe not quite get it, butshe would read it and, you know, have deep feelings about things.
Yeah, and it's interesting.

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The movie kind of starts as a two-hander.
You're seeing Ivy, but it's Sylvie's voiceover about her.
And dare I say, and I actually mean this, almost Gatsby-esque.
Yes.
The movie's called Poison Ivy for a reason.
This is Ivy's movie.
It is about her.
But getting the narration, that perspective from an outside character, which will alsomake sense by the end of the movie for another reason, more practically speaking.

(12:40):
Sure.
But um it is interesting because this movie is set up as kind of a two-hander right offthe bat.
And one of my issues with the movie is that it doesn't know whether it is a two-handerabout these two girls' relationship.
It then later morphs into more of a straight, Ivy is your fatal attraction villain, exceptshe's also the protagonist.

(13:06):
Right.
It'd be like if the main character in Fatal Attraction was Alex.
Right, right.
And it's very curious the way it gets into that because, we'll get there.
This is a very strangely structured movie in some ways.
I did want to mention one other great little trope here at the beginning.

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Not all of them have had it, but the best ones do.
You get some sweet, saxophone to open up in this opening sequence with the swinging.
you
I mean, if you don't have sweet, sexy saxophone in your psychosexual thriller, what areyou even doing?

(13:55):
Honestly, honestly.
And I should mention that, you know, after some films which illustrated the transitionfrom the eighties to the nineties, we're firmly in the nineties territory here.
mean, like, uh Sylvie dresses like girls I went to high school with, you know, like thatwas the whole, like that sort of neo hippie thing of the early to mid nineties is, it's

(14:18):
all here.
And let's let's get real Ivy is at least in part styled on Courtney love.
Sure.
And we're to be going to the tattoo shop later.
I mean, this thing is wicked 90s.
tattoo shop in Los Angeles.
is...
yes.
And so, you know, like all these kids are hanging out by the dried riverbed because that'swhere people hang out.

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And then one comes in with the news that a dog is hit by a car.
And so then we have this scene of a dog like hurt in the road and in rough shape.
I was just like, Jesus.
And nobody seems to know what to do until Drew Barrymore's yet unnamed character puts thething out of its misery with a pipe.
it's one of those things in this movie that feels like it might be a metaphor.

(15:04):
But I kind of don't know for what.
it a metaphor for the family?
Is it a metaphor for what's gonna happen later?
There's a lot of things in this movie that feel like they might be metaphors, but I don'tquite fully, you know, it's a lot of broken champagne glasses.
It's like, that's a metaphor for something.

(15:25):
Yeah.
ah For me, I just think that this is a character right off the bat who there's a certainpoint at which life is not worth living.
And, you know, it's better to put that dog out of its misery than try and, you know,pretend that it's got a life.
Sure.
And Ivy is the kind of person there for who if her life dips below a certain level, it islife or death for her.

(15:48):
Sure.
And we're going to see that reflected.
And we certainly will.
And this is just the this is though just the first of many red flags to come.
Well, Sylvie and the character we'll come to know as Ivy attend the same school, which isapparently like an exclusive private school where the not yet dubbed Ivy is a scholarship

(16:10):
student.
And the way Sylvie mentioned, you're one of those scholarship kids makes me wonder like,all right, come on, don't, don't, don't be like that.
You know, you're one of those scholars.
actually says that.
I will say that throughout this movie, this is a movie that is extremely aware of class inAmerica, which is often rare.

(16:32):
Americans do like to pretend it doesn't exist.
But this is a movie that is extremely aware of class.
ah Almost all of the characters at some point wind up commenting on it in certain ways.
uh Even the father with his whole job storyline.
my God.
his waning virility in the marketplace leading to the worst decisions.

(16:55):
But I'm just going to come out and say, uh, Tom Skerritt's Darrell is the true villain ofthis movie.
There's no question.
We'll pick that up as we go along the way.
That's the thing, like, all right, so they meet in the principal's office and not actuallynamed Ivy is there because her biology grades are slipping, which is a normal kind of high

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school thing.
Like, that's not anything weird.
It's like, oh, her biology grades are down a little bit.
other, Sylvie is there for calling in a bomb threat to the television station where herfather works.
Like, that's crazy.
Like, why are the cops here for that?
Holy shit!
Yeah, just some normal teenage pranking in the 90s, Chris.

(17:39):
I mean it was a different time but still like what like
It is pretty crazy
Ivy or not yet Ivy is there for like, her grades are down a little bit.
And the other is there for calling in a bomb threat is just.
Well, Sylvie's got the eye of Horace shaved into the side of her head, kind of like skaterstyle.

(17:59):
And it's like, you know, she's just she's just, you know, living her truth, dude.
I guess I bomb threats.
Yeah.
So that leads to the point that not, this is my feeling on it, is that not yet named Ivy,because we will get to that in a second, she's really the normal one.

(18:20):
And it's this family who are a bunch of dangerous nutcases.
Like that's like the thought, as you say, Daryl is the real villain.
I think Sylvie has got some culpability in this matter.
The mother's crazy too.
They're all nuts.
And, and...
You know, Ivy, she's just a girl trying to get through biology.

(18:41):
If you told me that this was a modernized version of a Tennessee Williams play, I wouldbelieve it.
family of like, you know, of means, but you get the sense that the means are precariousand they're slipping away.
Yeah.
Holy moly, man.
This is.
Absolutely.
So Sylvie's dad, Darryl, picks her up from school and in the first exchange between them,like there's a moment where Sylvie gets in the car and for a beat there, they feel like

(19:12):
real people.
Like he's pissed, but that's not unreasonable.
His daughter called in a bomb threat to his workplace and she seems genuinely sorry, butthen she corrects his grammar and from that point on they're just huge assholes.
And, you know, Darryl being so angry about what his daughter did kind of explains why hemisses the most glaring red flag from Ivy.

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Do you know what that red flag is?
She asks to be driven to Olympic and Fairfax.
Yes.
Now, anyone in Los Angeles knows there is nothing there but the most expensive gas stationin the entire county.
There used to be like a strip mall Starbucks, but now that's gone.
I don't even know that that would have been there in 1992.

(20:01):
There is nothing there.
uh Get being asked to be driven there is total red flag.
Like at least be driven to your aunt's place if it's close by.
I don't know what's going on.
Yeah.
Yeah, and he's so distracted.
He doesn't notice that.
He doesn't notice the truck that he almost pulls into oncoming traffic and hits.

(20:21):
And I just felt it's interesting.
To me, the red flag was when she, not only did she knock on the, she knocks on the windowand Sylvie lowers it.
And then Ivy sticks like her whole torso in the car.
And it's just like, oh, well, that's a forward.
And she asks for the ride, Darryl refuses.

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But Sylvie begs him to reconsider saying that her name is Ivy and she's her best friend.
So the whole time I've been calling her not Ivy, because she's not actually Ivy.
But that's just what Sylvie calls her in front of her dad.
And I like how she whispered to her, your name is Ivy.
We never learned her real name.
And in case uh our intrepid listeners uh are they intrepid?

(21:07):
don't know.
hope so.
But if you were wondering when Ivy leans into this car, gee, will the camera give me themale gaze?
You're goddamn right.
It will.
uh This is the most male gaze-y movie you've ever been to.
Although I will say in this instance, it is doing it on purpose.
Yes.
It does uh because you are it is communicating the fact that

(21:31):
villain number one, Darryl, the skeeziest skis that ever skis.
Right.
Is totally lusting after Ivy and that's why he agrees to take her in the car.
from minute one.
He is just, oh.
He's he's annoyed and he says no, but then once he looks at her he's like, whoa, okay

(21:51):
Now I have some interesting information for you on Ivy's name, because I'm fascinated bythe fact that we never actually learned her real name, that Ivy is what Sylvie dubs her,
and she kind of goes with.
But here's the thing.
I mentioned the direct-to-video sequels.
In the third film, which is called Poison Ivy, The New Seduction, we actually learn

(22:19):
that her name was Ivy all along.
That's genius.
I you know, are those moments when you witness someone else's writing and you just go Ishould hang it up because like you're writing poison ivy three this the new seduction or

(22:45):
whatever and it's like we're gonna reveal her new name and that it was ivy all along.
I'm just like you have the biggest balls man.
I love you.
I love you.
Like there's a flashback to her with her like her sister, like when she's a kid and hersister, God, I hope her sister is named Oak or Sumac.
Like that would be amazing.
Spoiler, it's Violet.

(23:06):
So that's, you know, still, like that was actually Ivy all along is incredible.
way, if we ever get a chance to reboot the poison ivy franchise, I want my colon part ofthe title to be leaves of three.

(23:29):
Those of you that know you know, poison ivy, oh my god, I don't know how that's gonnafigure into the plot.
It probably won't.
But
need to.
Oh, again, when I tell you about the directivity, because it goes, it's crazy from there.
Oh my God.
Well, that's at the end.
We'll get to that.

(23:50):
So Ivy goes home with the Coopers and Dad Darryl is leering like a pervert the whole time.
Like, listen, I know she's hot, but for God's sakes, you're an adult.
Come on.
And I swear to God, if I have to watch Tom Skerritt rub his jaw one more time.
Like he just keeps trying.
character has TMJ, which according to the film almost killed Burt Reynolds.

(24:12):
I looked it up, but I still don't quite know.
It's just like he just keeps rubbing his jaw.
And I'm like, it is just the weirdest.
It's the weirdest.
He is angry or creepy.
The character is angry or creepy.
Those are the two modes.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
He's angry or creepy.
Like, yeah.
And sometimes both.
So sometimes later, sometime later, the newly dubbed Ivy and Sylvie meet up again at therope swing where Ivy loses her boot, never climbs down to get it.

(24:40):
Like, it looks like it's 10 feet.
I feel like you would go get that boot.
especially given what happens to her boots later.
Uh, it's, it's, know, it's Sylvie tells a bunch of lies to her new friend and then takesher home.
Like all this stuff she tells her, she, she's all bullshit story.
about how her dad was really black and Daryl only adopted her to make her mom happy.

(25:01):
And what's funny is like Ivy's reply to that is really kind and thoughtful.
It's like connecting with her and opening up about her own troubled family.
But Sylvie's just lying here.
So she's just being, you know, like she's just manipulated.
I'm telling you, Ivy was just a normal regular girl until she ended up in this derangedfamily.

(25:21):
Yeah.
One thing I like that's, again, I really like the movie about the two girls.
Yes.
This segment is so interesting and so spot on um where you have the girl, uh Sylvie, froma family with material means at least, right?
They got money.
Right.
They got a house in the hills, which didn't mean the same thing in 1992 that it does now,but still it's, you know, they got a nice place.

(25:48):
Uh, and in order to appear interesting to, uh, this girl, cause she does, Sylvie does nothave many friends.
It's stated.
So in order to try to, you know, uh, make herself cool for this cool looking girl, sheinvents fake trauma for her life.
That is all a lie invented to make herself seem deep and interesting.

(26:09):
Whereas Ivy who comes from actual traumatic incidents hides it.
Yeah.
And I think that that is.
That's fascinating.
That feels extremely real to me for sure.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
So they go back to the Coopers house where we meet Sylvie's mom, Georgie, who is played byformer Charlie's angel, uh Cheryl Ladd.

(26:32):
And she is chronically ill with something.
I don't know.
She needs oxygen on a regular basis.
wait.
I'm sorry.
It's, mcguffosis, I believe.
Like she could be Frank Booth-ing it with that mask for all we know.

(26:56):
And here's the thing, here's the thing about Cheryl Ladd, she's the best looking sickperson you've ever seen.
Like not that she's just pretty, because obviously it's Cheryl Ladd, but she lookscompletely healthy.
Like she looks like she's about to go play tennis.
She's only wears bed clothes though, so that's all you need.

(27:18):
She hangs out in that bedroom, which has got so much drapery that all flows.
It's like she's all she does is she's like she's up there and it's like filming a musicvideo.
It's just everything's flowing in the wind.
We learned that Ivy's mother was a drug addict, lives and Ivy now lives with her aunt andthat Georgie takes a lot of prescriptions and used to drive a convertible.

(27:45):
And we get pearls of wisdom like
One day with the top down is better than a lifetime in a box.
I guess it depends on the box to be perfectly honest.
But here's the thing, Ivy has done nothing at this point, I don't think, with theexception of maybe the address she wants to be, she's done nothing to warrant suspicion

(28:09):
about.
We talk a lot about red flags, but like aside from that she wants to be driven to thisrandom intersection where there's-
absolutely nothing.
Like she hasn't really done anything where I felt like, you know, like is this movie afatal attraction story?
Like with a teenage antagonist who worms her way into this wealthy family, or is it abouta teenage girl looking for a stable loving family who finds herself with the worst people

(28:40):
imaginable?
And it's both.
It wants to be both.
I love the second movie, but the first movie doesn't quite work.
It mostly plays as an indie drama for these first 20 minutes or so.
Yes.
It's got the flashes.
It's letting you know that some, some stuff's going to come.
Uh, but it's, it's taken its time, you know, and, does.

(29:03):
its time.
I mean, it's interesting, but it definitely takes his time.
Here's how you know that this family are really awful.
It's not that they have money.
It's not even that they have a housekeeper.
It's that they make that housekeeper dress in a maid's uniform on a regular basis, like ona regular day.

(29:29):
Monsters, monsters.
Ivy should run away from this family consisting of a reactionary lech, aterror-threatsending liar, and a hypochondriac drug addict.
But instead she moves in with them and becomes best friends with Sylvie.
Yeah, it's crazy.
It's crazy.
Daryl is just like, every time you see him, he's leering, like there's bits where like,he'll just walk behind Ivy and he's leering.

(29:53):
He knocks her boots off the edge of the balcony and into the fountain in a very clumsy,awkward moment.
Like, how did he do that?
Can you hand me my boots?

(30:17):
These cost 150 bucks.
150.
Well, that ought to do it.

(30:44):
Change.
Being a resourceful girl, she dries the boots and pockets the cash.
But like every guy that Ivy encounters is a complete slime ball.
Like whether it's Daryl, the guy in the tattoo parlor, the worst tattoo shop in LosAngeles.
And I get it, you know, because men are terrible.
And she is a very attractive woman.

(31:05):
So, or girl, I guess would be the proper, she's a very attractive girl.
And she's going to draw that kind of attention.
But holy shit, everybody's just terrible.
Yeah, yeah, this is this is a world filled with mostly terrible people.
Sylvie, at least, is a kid, too.
Yes.
So, you know, she does some dumb stuff, but she's not in, you know, Ivy will make her madand then Sylvie will be like, I hate you.

(31:31):
You dress too slutty.
But like all of that's believable.
And you're like, you're a kid.
It's fine.
Like, I mean, it's not fine.
But like, I, I understand, you know, Sylvie's not the worst absolutely in the family.
Oh, totally.
It's clearly Darryl.
then what Georgina, then Sylvie.
Sylvie's not zero terrible, but she's of the three, think because of her age.

(31:54):
But also I, gotta say, you know, from the modern standpoint as well, but even of thenineties itself, I do think that there's a lot of signifying about how super slutty Ivy
dresses and I don't necessarily totally agree.
I mean, it's provocative, you know, and it has to be for the movie and the character andall of that.

(32:16):
And perhaps inappropriate given the age of the actress, but it's not like insanely.
No, like crazy.
No, I actually, I really agree.
it's, it's yeah, that dress could be, doesn't need, is a little too short.
You know, maybe the neckline plunges a little too much, but it's not like, you know, she,she doesn't look like a, a lady of the night.

(32:39):
And the way people talk about her is as if she's dressing like a, a, a lady of the night.
Yeah, I mean, yes, they are.
They're acting like she's on the corner in Pretty Woman, like.
And yeah.
And so they go, like I said, they go to the worst tattoo parlor in Los Angeles.
This guy sterilizes his equipment with booze.

(33:01):
And I'm just thinking to myself, like, Los Angeles is a competitive tattoo market.
There's no way this guy would stay open.
There's just no way he'd be able, like, there'd be too much competition.
know the one the one way is that he might be the tattoo artist for those too young toactually get a tattoo without parental I could see this guy's the sleaze-o who doesn't do

(33:24):
as good a work but if you're 16 you can come in and get a tattoo without mom and dad
Yeah, it's funny how at the time that was such a big, now it's like everybody is, likeit's just, it's like, oh, it has a tattoo.
Like it's an interesting thing how that's changed, the perception has changed since the90s.
And Ivy calls out Sylvie for only engaging in socially acceptable forms of rebellion, andshe's right.

(33:48):
Come on, Coop, how about a little artsy one?
Be like we're sisters, like blood sisters.
Yeah, if the infection didn't kill me, my dad would.
Hello, I thought you said she was 30.
What's happening?
She's having a little problem leaving home.
Come on, it's more important.
Death or friendship?

(34:08):
Please.
Look, I'm just not the type.
What's that supposed to mean?
Nothing.
Oh, but I am?
Low class?
You rich little bitch with your socially acceptable rebellion.
What am I, just another one of your inner city charity cases?

(34:30):
I'm so sorry.
What?
That you don't have to teach me to read.
Must break your heart.
Fuck you, Ivy.
Ivy has Sylvie's number.
Like, she totally gets who that girl is.
She's willing to do certain things that are performative, but she's not really, you know,she's not really rebelling.

(34:54):
Although she does get a tet.
Yeah, I mean, this is she is essentially calling her out like, um you know, like commonpeople by pulp, you know, Sylvie's rebellion is fake.
is.
Yes.
Yes, the William Shatner version is the definitive version of that song.
May disagree with you there.
I do love the Shatner version

(35:14):
The universe is amazing.
It's amazing.
It is.
It's definitive.
uh So like, here's the thing.
Like Ivy is a bit of a wild teenager, but like the things she's doing, she probablyshouldn't do.
Like she probably shouldn't get a tattoo that young, but like they all seem in like thebounds of normal teenage-ness.

(35:36):
Like rebellious, sure.
Maybe irresponsible, but she's not psychotic, like nor murderous, which again,
where this movie is going to go is a problem because there's a thing we're going to get tovery shortly where it just feels like it's out of nowhere.
Like I didn't believe it.
I didn't believe it for a minute.
meanwhile, Darryl spends all of his time railing against the evils of society on TV, likea local cut rate Bill O'Reilly.

(36:03):
Like I'm surprised he doesn't have a, we'll do it live style meltdown.
Although that tape was 15 years from coming out.
Also, he smashes up an elevator panel for no apparent reason.
Like he just like bangs into it to the point where the glass breaks and he's like bleedingand his co-worker is so obviously afraid of him that he ignores the broken glass and

(36:27):
bleeding hand.
Like this dude is a psycho.
Yes, he is.
He is off his rocker for sure.
He's just, I don't know if he was just too tightly wound, but even his coworker says,like, you're rich enough, you don't need a job.
Like, what are you doing?
You must own half the valley by now.
No, and he can't, of course, because we all know that, God, it's an off the cuff thing.

(36:54):
The guy from Karate Kid 3 owns half the
I was gonna say yes.
I knew where you were going.
It's like...
Oh god, I still gotta watch that final season of Cobra Kai.
my god.
So anyway, one night, Ivy and Carol encounters Daryl without his toupee.

(37:17):
She loves it.
yeah, like it's, is, this is the first moment at which you're like, okay, they're, they'returning Ivy into a different character.
She's into the lack of a toupee.
And again, the mother basically spends her time in the bedroom, this huge bedroom withflowing drapes.

(37:42):
Honestly, looking out at the city, it's like a music video.
We need to hear some Hart or Bonnie Tyler in the background.
Or at the very least, you know, it's like a hair conditioner commercial.
Oh.
Sure.
my goodness.
That's for real.
You could share a land, sure.
And Ivy does do a little manipulation to get Sylvie out of the house for the night ofDarryl's big work party, which is a party, God, this party is just full of first rate

(38:17):
a-holes.
We're moving through the party from Ivy's POV and we hear these people talk and
They are the absolute worst.
Like you actually hear someone say the line, you could cater my party anytime.
Like, my God, just the worst.
Everybody in this movie is just the worst except Ivy.

(38:38):
Everyone there works for the local news that would allow this guy on to rant aboutchildren every single day.
They're all they're all OK with this and it really comes across in this party scene.
Let me tell you.
Yeah, no, the parties, these people are the worst.
And Ivy is wearing one of Georgie's dresses and she admittedly looks terrific.

(38:59):
uh Daryl decides to drink despite the fact that he's an alcoholic.
Yes, Ivy brings him the champagne, but he's a fucking adult and, you know, it's up to himto be an adult.
Nobody, no adult in this movie wants to actually be an adult.
And there's the problem right there.
Yeah.
And yeah, I mean, you know, and he even says, think, oh, well, I'm okay.

(39:22):
So just one will be fine.
And they, they low key play the descent into alcoholism as you go through.
this is also interesting here because she doesn't quite totally disappear, but this is thesection now where Ivy has dispatched Sylvie, as you said, and, the movie starts to
dispense with Sylvie more and more as we go into this section of the movie.

(39:45):
Yes.
And
you know, functionally, I get it from the standpoint of Ivy is now going to be trying toseduce Daryl, not that she has to work very hard at that.
let me tell you, he's inappropriate.
But, I think in addition to her character changing so much without having seen a ton of itearly, aside from the dog kill, maybe, right.

(40:08):
that it does create
some issues with like you're changing Ivy's character.
You also set up this two-hander with a relationship and now it's you're just going to hertrying to go after the dad and it it does make it a little a little messy even though the
scenes themselves are fairly clean.
No, the scenes themselves work, but it's just the arc of this character, she goes from arelatively normal, if maybe somewhat troubled girl to uh a crazy villainess in a handful

(40:45):
of scenes that don't justify that transformation.
Yeah, totally.
A drunk Daryl ends up dancing with Ivy, at least until they're interrupted by Georgie.
She has come down after the party's long over, presumably the Whitesnake video shoot ranlong.
And as Georgie passes out, Daryl buries his head in Ivy's legs with his wife, like, rightthere.

(41:11):
It is...
Is this the section where when Georgie catches them, she's irate?
Justifiably so.
And then Ivy and Daryl essentially lie.
then yeah.
And then George is like, oh, I guess I was being silly.
And she goes to sleep and then the thing happens.
And it's just, yeah, they are.
Yeah.
Daryl is is just the worst.

(41:32):
he's terrible.
He's a terrible human being.
ah you know, and then, you know, so Sylvie comes back and, know, Sylvie gets pissed offbecause the, dog likes Ivy better now, uh, maybe cause their dog treats that Ivy has in
her pocket.
But again, you know, again, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of distancebetween, you know, her kind of purring favor with the family dog and what's going to

(42:00):
happen soon.
Like it's just, it's that transformation that I can't get my brain around.
The dog thing is a good example, a good concrete detail of we learn that Sylvie is jealousin the voiceover, which is fine, because you've established her voiceover, right?
Sure.
But Sylvie says, I guess maybe I'm jealous because, you know, the dog only likes medoesn't like anyone else.

(42:26):
But now the dog likes Ivy better.
I'm paraphrasing, obviously.
Too much.
But, um, you know, that is just in time delivery of information about the dog only likingSylvie in a better way to do it.

(42:46):
And I hesitate to use those words, except I just did.
So too late.
Um, you would want to have the, dog doesn't like anyone come out earlier, right?
And maybe they did and had, and they cut that scene and that's why it jammed into thevoiceover here.
Like, you know, I don't know that the iterative history of this thing, but it does hurtit.

(43:07):
And I feel that there are a lot of things about Ivy as well that come as just in timedelivery as opposed to having been set up in act one.
And, frankly, act one, I like for me, I was fine that it was taking its time.
Like, that's fine to me.
But like when you're taking your time, you should be able to set these things up.

(43:28):
Exactly.
It's not that Act 1 takes its time.
It's that it takes its time and it doesn't do the building that you need for later.
That's the problem.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
So, Daryl picks up Ivy at school and I don't know about you, but to me, he seemed visiblydrunk.
Yeah.
Like he's driving his Mercedes.

(43:48):
He seems visibly drunk.
But Ivy gets in a car anyway and we get some dialogue about how...
The words heard and hurt sound very similar.

(44:14):
I'm gonna meal.
thought you said hurt me.
No I didn't.

(44:36):
Did I hurt you?
And it's just like, okay, yeah, I get it.
It's operating on the level of like a Guns N' Roses, November rain music video kind ofthing, not as stylish to be perfectly honest.

(45:03):
You know honestly if the movie was just the november rain video i'd be fine with it itreally is it does feel like there's two or three movies happening at various times and
they don't always uh mesh with each other.
Yeah.
Speaking of rain, it does start to rain, which it does here in Los Angeles, but usuallynot that much in May.

(45:25):
They are having a very, cause there's a uh shot of a calendar early in the film thatestablishes very clearly that it is May, that Darrell's party is in mid May.
And this is like the next day or a couple of days later.
It usually doesn't rain that much in May in Los Angeles, but who knows?
You know, maybe climate change has come early.
And we made December.

(45:46):
you're getting your your April showers.
Oh, they flowers.
But why not some may showers too so that you can sexy dance and then inappropriately dothings by the car?
Yeah.
Then we get the sex scene between Ivy and Daryl out in the rain.
uh Again, they clearly do not have the original footage for whatever the unrated versionis, because you had those standard definition inserts, which it told you what footage was

(46:21):
not in the original theatrical cut for sure.
And I guess this sex has quite an effect on Ivy because the next day she goes to seeGeorgie up in her bedroom in between music video shoots.
The two look out over Los Angeles before Ivy pushes her off the balcony.

(46:42):
This is a pivotal moment here where she boom and it's so weird.
Like she pushes her and then Georgie kind of turns around and grabs her.
We have this moment where they're facing each other and then
Ivy, let's go.
But, and this is what I've been leading up to is this to me, I'm looking at this movie andI'm like, there's nothing in this that tells me this girl is capable of like throwing a

(47:04):
woman out a window.
And it's weird because in other ways they bothered to set up that the mom has had suicidaltendencies has talked about.
Sometimes I get up there and wonder about if I just let go.
Yes.
So like the cover story for Ivy has been laid there, which is part of it.

(47:27):
Like the, the would Ivy believe maybe she could get away with it has been laid in like alot, but the
Ivy would do it.
The capability.
Yeah, that has not been as late in.
I suppose you could say the dog thing.
It's a lot of daylight between a dog that had been hit by a car and one of Charlie'sangels.

(47:50):
Yeah, it's a long way and they haven't necessarily shown that the mom is suffering so muchthat Ivy and also it's not a mercy killing like the dog was.
This is I'm taking over.
Yeah.
So it's also not one to one in that way.
Anyway, it's just, it doesn't quite fit.

(48:11):
No, it's such a shocking moment and I just don't see the buildup to it and I'm just like,I don't buy it, I just don't buy it.
The movie has not convinced me that this character could do that.
Yeah.
So, and this is about 65 minutes in, uh, when Ivy finally kills the mom.

(48:32):
So this is your bunny moment.
Right.
yeah.
Cheryl lad is the bunny.
And you know, we did have the very good life that was choking these people to start withbecause they're all monsters.
We did.
Yes.
And then Ivy's seduction of Sylvie and then later of Daryl are, you know, I at least seewhy Sylvie wanted her.
So it's hitting some of these beats along the way.

(48:52):
Oh, yeah.
But it is not.
You know what this is missing?
I think I nailed it for myself.
What is it?
You don't have the um Madame Butterfly moment.
Yeah.
Totally.
Totally.
from from fatal.
And I all of sudden realizing I'm a terrible podcast co-host in Fatal Attraction.

(49:14):
Alex and Dan, when they're on their, you know, fling their one night stand fling, or maybeit's the next day, but tonight, tonight stand fling while his wife's out of town.
They share a moment over Madame Butterfly and he opens up to her, although he's reallyjust opening up because in the moment, but she takes it as opening up to her.
And and then it's like,

(49:36):
I now buy that she is obsessed with him and it slowly builds from there.
You don't really get something that works on the same level in this movie.
I agree.
I agree.
And now that you say it, like that's the missing, that's the missing piece to this becausethat it's, yeah, that's, that's the thing.
I if we had seen the ants place.

(49:59):
Like what is Ivy's life that she is like we get it in dialogue, but it's you know, I don'tquite get the Harry Potterness.
If I saw her living under the stairs, maybe it would help.
Yes, I think that I think 100 % I that that would absolutely like at least go so because Iwas thinking about that.

(50:22):
I'm like we never I kept expecting some kind of reveal about her life that we never get.
Like not even her name.
Well, I guess, you know, if you stick around for the second sequel, you'll find out hername is actually Ivy.
But, you know, in in in the text of the first movie, we never learn her name.

(50:42):
uh After the funeral Ivy starts sleeping in Georgie's bed, which is admittedly weird.
Darryl gets fired from his job, which we're told he's so rich he doesn't need anyway.
And that's less weird.
Yeah, he be fired.
He's a rage monster.
Yeah, he's a terrible, terrible person.
And so he cleans up her mother's old Corvette convertible in a scene with more genuinesensualness than the rain sexy.

(51:08):
Like when she is cleaning up that convertible, is with love and it is, like there is asensuality to that that I felt in those shots.
And frankly, a craftsmanship.
She's restoring this thing very well.
Yeah.
It is like a pro job.
Both the movies today had old classic cars restored in a convincing way.

(51:31):
oh It's really interesting.
Like that's a weird connection between the two.
So Sylvie and Ivy go for a ride in the Corvette and Ivy is behind the wheel and they haveGeorgie's ashes in an urn between them, which is again, weird.
I was gonna say totally normal, totally normal.

(51:55):
The biggest crime here, maybe the biggest crime in the film is the way Ivy is driving thiscar because it's bad.
Like it's bad for the car.
They've just restored it and like they are, they are ruining this car mechanically.
Like she's terrible at driving.
She cannot drive a manual.

(52:17):
She claimed it.
This is incorrect.
She is stripping the gears left and right in this.
my God, she's just terrible.
Like she's Cher from Clueless.
That's how bad she's driving.
And then as she's driving, Ivy hums this tune that she heard in the Coopers house.
And it's the same music that was playing on the stereo when she threw Georgie off thebalcony.

(52:43):
And Sylvie responds.
by immediately jumping to the conclusion that she was there when her mother died.
Cause she had come into the room.
I forgot to mention this.
She had come into the room.
She didn't see anybody.
She didn't see her mother.
She didn't see Ivy.
She turns off the stereo so she hears the music.
But like, she's like, oh, you must've been there when she died, which is a huge leap, ahuge leap.

(53:06):
And then Ivy is instantly guilty, essentially like, I didn't kill your mother.
And then Sylvie
has no chill.
She has zero chill.
She'd be like, what are you saying?
That I killed your mother?
I'm like, well, I wasn't until now.
Yeah.
This is a lady who masterminded like eight different lies to get Sylvie out of the house,right?

(53:27):
That she could do the work party thing.
But like one little thing, I mean, the mother's bedroom door was open.
Anyone could have heard that music anywhere in that house on the second floor.
She's been in that house for a while.
Who knows how many times the mother...
Oh my God.
Like it's just, it's such a leap.

(53:48):
then, but immediately Ivy confirms it by acting like super guilt.
Like, what are you saying?
That I pushed her out of the balcony?
Well, yeah, apparently that's what you're saying.
So, and then they have the crash.

(54:09):
which they just drive right into a tree.
Like they just drive off right into a tree.
This is why you wear your seatbelt.
Neither of them are wearing seatbelts.
The steering wheel pushes against uh Ivy's chest, which we'll come back to that later, butshe slides Sylvie over into the driver's seat.

(54:31):
And the next thing is Sylvie wakes up in the hospital where her dad seems to care moreabout the fact that she actually got a tattoo than she was just in a...
car accident.
He's like, he's just the worst.
Like, you got a tattoo.
Like, she nearly, she could have been killed in a car accident.
You're not even angry at her for not wearing her seatbelt, which is what you should be.

(54:52):
Like just, my God.
It's I have the sneaking suspicion that this is Cameron's father from Ferris Bueller's dayoff.
It's Cameron's just moved on, but this is the little sister.
oh Yeah, I know it's not in Illinois, but.
So she's left alone in the hospital and Sylvie starts to hallucinate images of her motherand despite being very seriously hurt, she escapes what might be the worst secured medical

(55:24):
facility in cinema history.
Like she just sneaks past the desk and gets right out and like there's no problem with herevading security in this hospital.
And then, you know, she, she it's pouring rain cause why not?
And, and she, she is picked up by a goth guy driving what has got to be the cure fan clubtour bus.

(55:51):
it's like such a weird moment.
Um, I honestly, for a moment, I thought that guy might've been one of Sylvie'shallucinations.
Yes.
uh And Sylvie is about to learn that it can rain all the time.
can.
She's going to get home and it's not going to be good.
No, no, she gets home in time to see Daryl having sex with Ivy in the living room.

(56:13):
And I guess, cause he was, you know, he was behind her.
I guess he failed to notice the giant mark from where her chest impacted with the steeringwheel.
But he will notice, you know, once they're outside.
this is one of the shots that appears to go into uh standard deaf land.
Yeah, yeah.

(56:33):
In the unrated where I was, I was like, Oh, this is like, this that shot in particularseemed to bridge too far.
very shocking.
But then, and yeah, the telltale mark hidden this shop, like we saw it earlier to it'svery prominent.

(56:53):
wouldn't miss it if you were just looking.
You just you wouldn't miss it.
It's it's.
Yeah, so it all it all goes sideways from here.
Daryl runs off to find Sylvie.
He he slips on the stairs like going out because it's so rainy and takes a fall that itnormally would just destroy his back like that.
His his back is done like that.

(57:15):
Forget it.
Like he's not coming back from that.
And and.
Yeah, Sylvie, she finds her, she's hallucinating her mother, and she sees her, she thinksher mother, she embraces Ivy, but then Ivy gives the game away when she goes in for the
motherly kiss, and uh Ivy uses a little too much tongue for a motherly kiss, and Sylviepushes her out the window.

(57:42):
So yeah, yeah, that's it.
And then we have a final voiceover saying,
Sylvie saying how much she misses Ivy.
It is, it's something.
It is really something.
There's, there's, there are pieces of this movie that I really liked, but it, is, itdoesn't know what it is.
And it, it, it made me a little, it made me a little crazy watching it.

(58:06):
mean, it's it's a little girl interrupted.
It's a little bonkers sexploitation movie or or I guess as a as I saw online, slutsploitation.
uh I will admit I did not know that term before and uh I'm not sure how I feel aboutknowing it now.

(58:28):
Apparently the original ending that they wanted was that Sylvie, uh sorry, that Ivy gotaway and the last shot is of her hitchhiking away.
But the studio insisted that she have some punishment for her actions, which is why sheends up getting tossed out of the balcony window.
I guess it did well enough on video that the studio said, well, we need less punishment.

(58:53):
Yeah.
Well, here's the thing.
There are four Poison Ivy movies in total released between 1992 and 2008.
None of the sequels featured Drew Barrymore, so you didn't have to do an awkwardresurrection.
The second film, Poison Ivy 2, Lily, stars Alyssa Milano as a girl named Lily who findsIvy's diary, which we never see in this first film.

(59:22):
and then takes it as an inspiration for her life.
my God, Ivy's diary is like Tom Riddle's diary.
The Harry Potter connections just keep coming in, It's gonna possess you.
The third film as I mentioned is Poison Ivy the new seduction, introduces Ivy's sisterViolet played by Jamie Presley.
And it's this is the film where we learned that Ivy was her actual name all along.

(59:46):
And then there's a fourth film, Poison Ivy, the secret society that revolves around a cultof Ivy worshipers led by a girl named Azalea.
No.
You are making that up!
Or something like that, yeah.
I'm instantly putting that on as soon as we're off.
It's called Poison Ivy, the secret society.

(01:00:08):
And, and they're all like, they're all worshiping Ivy or something like that.
don't know.
My word.
my God.
You know, there is still some good in this world.
Oh, God.
it's, you know, this movie's insane.
it's, but it's not the only film that presented a teenage spin on the fatal attractionmodel because our second film today does something similar, although in a different way

(01:00:39):
and I think ultimately more successfully.
From 1993, this is The Crush.
Nick Elliot was looking for a nice quiet place to write.
He thought he found it with the Forrester family.

(01:01:03):
Then he met Darian.
How much they paying you to watch me?
Just running the guest house.
From the moment she met Nick You know how hard it is for me to make friends.
It's like everybody thinks I'm some kind of freak or something.
I'll be your friend.
She was crazy about him.
Tarion's very special.

(01:01:24):
girl.
Pick up, darling.
Oh, hi, Darren.
It's my friend Amy.
My landlord's kid, She's got a crush on you.
What, are you saying I did something to provoke this?
Well, did you?
At first, he was flattered.
If you were 10 years older, You'd what?
You have to be an adult.
can't blur the line.

(01:01:47):
really like you, Darren.
I really like you too.
No, I...
I mean...
as a friend.
That's a big difference.
Marion!

(01:02:07):
What do you-
as if Darien can't have him.
Darien?

(01:02:39):
The crush was written and directed by Alan Shapiro, apparently based on a real incidentthat happened when he rented a guest house when he moved to Los Angeles after college.
And the couple that he was renting from had a teenage daughter who developed a crush onhim.
And when he rejected her, because she was, you know, not, not, she was underage, shedeveloped an unhealthy obsession.

(01:03:04):
But what's interesting is that when Shapiro used this as the basis for a script,
He did something really, really dumb.
He kept the real name of the girl as the name of the character.
As a result, the character's name Darien, which we hear in the trailer, was redubbed toAdrian in the home video and television versions of the film.

(01:03:31):
Telling me there's their film prints with the with the original name.
There must be somewhere in some vault somewhere.
It's on the trailer.
it's, it's, but like I watching it and every time like a character said Adrian and likethat the camera was on them.
Like I started to notice that the mouth didn't match up to the audio.

(01:03:53):
It took a while.
Like it took me like having, was like, that looks weird.
I actually rewound it.
And then I didn't read this until after I had watched the movie and I was just like, Oh myGod.
And apparently Darien could still be seen on like a letter in the movie, like other otherdocuments in the film because they didn't reshoot it.
You know, it was just it's like they redubbed it.
So this is like the original baby reindeer.

(01:04:14):
Yeah.
Crazy, crazy.
The crush stars Carrie Elwes as 28 year old writer, Nick Elliott, who is moving toSeattle, Washington for a job as a writer with Peak magazine.
So first off, we're back to Seattle, the setting of the hand that rocks the cradle.
Although judging from the credits, this film was at least partially shot in Vancouver,British Columbia, which would become the go-to Pacific Northwest place to shoot because of

(01:04:44):
Canadian tax credits.
And this movie kind of made me a little nostalgic for print media.
Like, Nick works for a monthly magazine with a full staff, including photographers.
It all seems downright luxurious in the era of online journalism.
Yeah.
And, uh, you know, you do get, uh, cause this was, you know, the nineties and you'resetting the movie in Seattle.

(01:05:08):
So you do get some kind of grunge adjacent like music in it.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, well we see him driving in and he's got like, uh it's a song playing, hard to get.
The refrain that I kept getting is he, hard to get.
That's not exactly how it goes, but you know, get the picture.

(01:05:30):
The film also stars Alicia Silverstone in her feature film debut.
And it was her appearance in The Crush that led her to being cast in a trilogy of musicvideos for the band Aerosmith, including crying, amazing,
and crazy and I watched the, I pulled up the crying music video after I watched it.

(01:05:51):
That's the budgie one.
uh That takes me back.
Like, don't know how many times I must've seen that video on MTV back in the day when MTVplayed music videos.
It was in heavy rotation.
Heavy!
It was on all the time.
It was inescapable.
my God.
Inescapable.
Yeah.
And you know, she does the bungee jump at the end.

(01:06:12):
And what's it?
Stephen Dorff plays the asshole boyfriend in the music video.
And it's the most perfect bit of Stephen Dorff casting I've ever seen.
Like it's, it's way better than Blade.
uh The crush also features Jennifer Rubin as Nick's coworker and love interest, Amy.
She was Taryn from Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors.

(01:06:33):
And that took me a few minutes to, to read.
was like, where do I know that girl from?
And it was like, my God, Dream Warriors.
Yeah, no, I was very excited to see her in the movie and yeah, she does a good job.
Everyone's good in this one.
feels like a more polished production than Poison Ivy.

(01:06:54):
Well, and, and this movie is only trying to be one thing.
Teenage Fatal Attraction.
Yes.
That's it.
And because of that, the villain is the villain, right?
Right.
Alicia Silverstone's character, Adrian, and he is our intrepid protagonist.
They also learned the lesson of Dan in Fatal Attraction, which is that I would say more sothan Dan.

(01:07:20):
He does not do
nearly as many bad things.
No, see Dan actually had a one night stand, right?
He can't do that here because you know, she is underage and that's at that at that point,you're just you, you're not rooting for him anymore.
So exactly.
He's a little more Kurt Russell in an unlawful entry that he mostly seems to be trying todeal with things mostly from a believable standpoint.

(01:07:45):
We
and it's the funny thing of in particular early in this film, know, whereas Poison Ivy, Ikind of didn't like most of the, like I really didn't like these people by and large.
I kind of liked everybody in this movie early on.
I liked Carrie Elwes, I liked Alicia Silverstone.
I think there's some really interesting stuff.

(01:08:07):
Again, you get more of the family, like Kurtwood Smith plays her father.
He's crazy.
I will get into that in a little bit, but I thought this movie early did a really good jobof presenting characters who are just kind of trying their best to do the right thing.

(01:08:27):
There's no bad guy early on.
Yeah.
Like he does things that I think are mistakes, but he doesn't know that they are mistakes.
And, you know, don't get us wrong.
The crush is fucking bonkers.
Yes.
Ass movie.
Yes.
But it does it in a very functional way that is entertaining.

(01:08:52):
Yes.
How I would put it.
So, you know, there is believable within the context of a movie like the crush, you know,this isn't a Robert Altman movie.
So we're, you know, I just want to put things in that context, but
know, for what this is, it totally is working.
And um it but it is.
It's fucking crazy.

(01:09:15):
Like, I just looked at what my first one of my first notes is.
And I was like, Oh, I feel the need to let people know this movie is crazy.
Don't get me wrong.
It's but it's it's fun.
It's more crazy, I think, than Poison Ivy, and it earns its craziness, which is why itworks.
Like, that's the thing.
I'll just say this now to illustrate the point at one point, 14 year old AliciaSilverstone, Adrian.

(01:09:42):
Or Darien if you're watching this in a theater in 1993.
Yes.
She rewrites a magazine article to the AP standard better than Carrie Elwes' character.
like the magazine editor, the guy who owns it is just like, no notes.
I'm publishing it as is.
I was like, oh, we're in this movie.

(01:10:06):
Okay.
And I love it.
uh
So it opens, Carrie Ellis is driving around Seattle, it's got the top down, and he'slooking for a decent apartment and there's no luck.
He's struggling with the paper maps.
ah God, paper maps, I don't miss those.
And he nearly hits Alicia Silverstone on rollerblades.

(01:10:28):
And it's definitely the 90s, because rollerblades.
She's not on roller skates, she's on rollerblades.
And she's got TUDE!
So much TUDE right off the bat!
Very blase about the fact that she just nearly got plowed down by this guy.
She's not blase Chris.
She is annoyed.
She almost got run over and murdered by a car.

(01:10:49):
So annoyed.
oh
And then Nick sees a sign in front of this huge house reading guest house for rent.
And what I'm not clear about, was this the place he was looking for on the map or did hejust happen to see it when he stopped to not hit Alicia Silverstone?
And this movie, it don't matter.
It don't either way it works.

(01:11:11):
What's fascinating to me is the house is enormous, which brings up the question, why dothese people even need to rent out their guest house?
This is a mansion.
They can't possibly need the money.
think they do.
Do you know how much it would cost to reinforce a wooden attic floor to be able to hold anentire working carousel?

(01:11:35):
Like an affair?
oh That is a hell of an expense, my friend.
true.
You're not wrong.
You're not wrong.
So I guess they do.
Maybe they need the money for, for carousel floor reinforcement.
Uh, get to the carousel a little bit.
My God.
was so, I couldn't have been more surprised.
when he takes them up.
So bonkers.

(01:11:56):
I could not have been more surprised.
oh So the wife shows the house and all of these people are just making incredibly rashdecisions.
he literally agrees to take the house without, like the guest house, which is above thegarage.
He literally agrees to take that without seeing the inside.

(01:12:18):
He's looking from the outside and it's like, he's right there.
Like why would...
You go inside before you agreed to take it.
It's not like you're moving from overseas where it's like, yeah, I have to rent a placeonline or something like that.
You're right there.
Go up the stairs and see if you want to rent it.
Like, but no, he's like, it's perfect.
Yeah, well, and he also essentially just when he finds out that they have a daughter, he'slike, Oh, yeah, I mean, I basically almost killed her with my car.

(01:12:45):
I mean, he say it by that way.
I'm like, Oh, you are rather forward.
There you go.
And the woman is willing to rent to him so quickly.
Like she just, like she makes Matthew Modine in Pacific Heights look methodical andconsiderate.
There's no credit check.
There's no references.
Like even Carter Hayes bothered with fake references.

(01:13:08):
like, nothing.
And this is a big point later in the movie, someone else will take their sweet time withthe interview process.
That's true.
That's true.
By the way, The Wife is played by Canadian actress Gwyneth Walsh, who played one of theKlingon Durass sisters on Star Trek The Next Generation.

(01:13:29):
Ka-plah!
I don't even know if that's actual Klingon.
Yes it is.
you know full well.
uh You know, you know full well.
So Nick takes the apartment and soon meets the couple's precocious 14 year old daughter,Adrienne or Darian, if you're watching this in the theater in 1993.
And when we first see her, she's watching Nick.

(01:13:51):
She has her friend Cheyenne go and kind of scout him out.
Cheyenne is played by future Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast member, Amber Benson.
And here's the thing, Rob, about these early scenes.
I really like Adrienne in the first act of this movie.
Like, she comes across as a teenager, but a smart and interesting one at that.

(01:14:12):
Like, I like her.
And I like Nick for that matter too.
Like, he's not a perv, he's not a creeper.
Like, he's not Ben from Sleeping with the Enemy, he's certainly not Daryl from Poison Ivy.
He's just a normal guy.
Yeah, I mean, that'll change a little bit, but not irredeemably so.

(01:14:34):
He, he, cause there are a couple of mistakes that he will make down the road that arequite big ones.
And you know, Adrian Darien, could be argued because again, you do have to have thatseduction phase where it seems like she's just a cool kid in Nick's eyes.
Right?
Right.
So it's like, he will, he will do things that will give her the wrong impression about

(01:14:58):
you know, their relationship, right?
Right.
And it is interesting to me that this movie, you could argue that it's, there is a similarswitch with Adrian's character as there is with Ivy's character in the prior movie, where
there's not a ton early on that would give the impression that she's going to go superbonkers, right?

(01:15:22):
Right.
However, because this movie is consistently the same movie,
It's a little more viable.
Like I don't know that you have a full on, you know, madam butterfly moment in this oneeither, but they do at least drop in some of Adrian saying that she's advanced.
I she skipped a couple of grades.

(01:15:44):
So she's very young and doesn't have peers at school.
So she's isolated that way.
And you're also getting in that like she thinks of herself as more mature and advanced.
It's easier to talk to adults.
they're,
They're laying in a lot of stuff where you get the obsession with Nick.
Um, the murderous turn, you do kind of have to buy a little bit, but you know, frankly,this movie is so crazy and it creates a world that's so crazy that I buy.

(01:16:10):
I I, I rolled with it.
Yeah.
uh No, 100%.
100%.
But it also does this thing where it doesn't alienate me early.
like these characters from the get like, yeah, here's the thing about Nick is Nick andyou're right, he does make more mistakes later.
But early on, his big mistake is that he is clearly just not a guy who has spent much timearound teenagers.

(01:16:35):
So he doesn't realize the impact of
you know, that his words and actions have on this girl.
Like, he doesn't realize that just being friendly is gonna, and you know, because he's ahandsome guy, Cariel was for good to say.
I was gonna say he also does not really understand that he's carry always right.

(01:16:58):
they take great pains to make him look like, you know, super dreamy.
Yeah.
Like, no, he's, yeah, all of that.
But he doesn't, he's a guy who has not spent a lot of time around kids, teenagers.
So he doesn't understand that.
And that is a, to me, that is a totally reasonable thing.
I'm like, I get how he, early on, he's just trying to be a nice guy, you know?

(01:17:23):
It's just normal.
And...
So later, Adrian meets Nick while he's working on his classic convertible.
He's restoring, again, classic car restoration.
And she later comes and visits him in the guest house.
Again, it's all reasonable stuff.
Now, there's a scene later where she comes into the guest house when Nick is showering.

(01:17:46):
And this is where he makes, I think, his first big mistake because he doesn't realize thatsomeone's come in and he hears somebody, he's like, who's there?
And then...
He's like, I gotta get dressed.
He makes the mistake of not fully closing that bathroom door when he's getting out of theshower.
And that allows Adrian to get a peek at his, his behind.

(01:18:07):
And it was just like, dude, you know, she's in the guest house, close the door all theway.
Yeah.
And then he's, hanging out in the towel and all of that.
you know, it is interesting that one of the earlier shots, we actually get to see herogling him a bit.
Yeah.
Um, even if it is, you know, it does feel very much like how a man ogles, not necessarilyhow a woman ogles, but, uh, you know, cause we are going to get, you know, where, where

(01:18:38):
this does go is that
you know, the movie will posit that um after it's set Nick up to be very reasonable personthat at a certain point, his gay, he will not be able to look away from her, right, right?
That he does have a little bit of obsession.
He's struggling to cover it and struggling, you know, and she's seeing that and you getthis kind of cat and mouse game with him pretending he is not physically attracted to her

(01:19:06):
and her toying with him.
Right.
Again, in the context of the movie, works.
Uh, you know what that says about real life?
oh we'll just avoid that question for now.
I should also mention we get a little bit of his job.
meets a photographer, Amy, uh you know, and, and, there's a big story that Nick's workingon that hinges on this hard to get interview.

(01:19:28):
I, I wasn't clear on the details.
The movie doesn't need you to be, it just, honestly, it's just a big work thing that canget messed up later.
Like you're setting up the big work.
And that there does seem to be Jennifer uh or Amy, excuse me, ah is kind of taking Nickunder her wing as well a little bit with like the office politics or whatever, just kind

(01:19:50):
of not they don't spend a lot of time on it, but it's they're kind of instant buds.
And as you come in and out of the movie, you will see that their relationship progresses.
Yeah, in a sort of normal organic way where, know, it's like, okay.
So Nick does accept an invitation to Adrian's parents party.

(01:20:10):
Like they're throwing a big party, he's invited over and he kind of shows up in a kind ofneighborly sort of way.
He sees how talented a pianist uh Adrian is.
And we start to get some interaction with the parents.
The father in particular is
He's talking about how one of the other women at the party had her breasts done.

(01:20:30):
Honestly, I think the parents might be the real villains here.
And piano playing a figuring into the second movie here.
ah Part of the trope of doing the teen version of Fatal Attraction.
I don't know why, but it is.
So he shows up, he compliments her on her piano playing, and he has no idea, I think, whatthat means to her.

(01:20:55):
It's kind of feeding into her idealization of him, and he kind of doesn't realize it.
And the thing is, at least until you get to this line...
in a conversation that they have at the party.

(01:21:20):
does your boss like the article?
Who's you?
You rewrote it?
Hi Mr.
Pogel!
Hello, Wren!
Wait a minute, how'd you get in?
It ain't Fort Knox.
Adrienne, you can't do that.
What, though, didn't it?
Poor Nick.
You such a terrible time with the objective case.
And your split infinitive is such a stress on the adverb.

(01:21:43):
Adrienne, you just can't go around doing that.
It isn't right.
I just wanted you to like me.
Of course I liked you.
Then take me for a in the Valiant.
Now?
Yeah, just for little while.
There's a place I want to show you.
Yeah, that line, if you were 10 years older, really feels like the wrong thing to say.

(01:22:08):
Like, holy shit.
Like, that was the first thing where I was like, that is, that is a mistake.
And more than a mistake, you feel that it's the first time he kind of knows.
Like he, you know, it does feel like he is in, you know, he likes the idea of theflirtation at this point.

(01:22:29):
And it's just, it's like, man, as soon as he said that, I was just like, it dropped to thepit of my stomach.
I was like, oh shit.
And this is also where we learned that she rewrote his article, which is obviouslycrossing a line.
uh It doesn't speak too much to his skills as a writer if a 14 year old can improve hiswork.

(01:22:51):
I mean, for goodness sake, Rob, he's working for Peak Magazine.
Yes, uh and by the way, that's P-I-Q-U-E.
It is, as in it will pique your interest.
Interest.
Yeah, and I guess this is where they've set her up.
She's a very advanced high school student, but he maybe isn't as great as a writer as yousee is.

(01:23:13):
oh Adrian twists Nick's arm into taking her for a ride in his convertible.
Again, this is where he just needed to be the adult and be like, no, I'm sorry.
I can't do that.
I gotta go.
But he lets it happen.
And she takes him to this place over the water with a spectacular view.

(01:23:33):
And she talks a little bit about how hard it is to make friends and that sort of thing.
And honestly, I feel bad for her in some ways.
It is tough not fitting in, and I understand that, but then she kisses Nick.
And that's when things are gonna escalate from there.

(01:23:55):
And it's interesting.
She's, doesn't kiss him until after the article, which doesn't seem necessarily related,except he kept the secret.
He just took credit for it.
Yeah.
He didn't say anything.
Yeah.
So she's already kind of gotten him into a place where they have a secret relationship andthen the kiss, which he also does not really tell anyone about.

(01:24:18):
he's.
He's like no one can know about that.
Like he's very much like doesn't want anybody to find out.
And he shuts her down, you or attempts to.
quite fast enough to be perfectly honest.
No.
Like, it doesn't-
before she kisses him, she takes his hand and he should have immediately said, he shouldhave immediately pulled away.

(01:24:39):
ah Honestly, he should not have gone with her to a second location.
Don't go with a teenager to a second location.
Just don't.
Do it now.
Not not in that convertible.
No, no, not in that convertible, my goodness.
So from here, like Adrian starts being more forward with like, she's laying out in thebikini just outside the window and he's, he's looking and she knows he's looking.

(01:25:04):
And he knows it's trouble.
Like he knows that this is all a mess and that it's sort of gaining steam.
Like honestly, you should have moved out right here.
And this is what yes, he 100 % should have moved out.
ah This is where I think the movie does it's like, he's a good guy, but he just can't helphimself.
And, you know,
I mean, he's not Daryl from Poison Ivy.

(01:25:25):
Let's be clear.
No, Daryl is the wolf, the cartoon wolf licking his chops.
This is more like the, I know it's wrong, but I just can't help myself.
And if she doesn't see me looking, well then what's the harm?
But dude, she's gonna see you looking.
Like that's the thing.

(01:25:47):
so, you know, and then Amy comes over and, you know, she sees him coming home.
She calls out, Nicholas, darling, not realizing that Amy is there.
And it's just, oh man, is cringe city when, you know, it's like, he sort of describes heras my landlord's kid.
Oh.
Like, you know, again, there's moments where I genuinely feel bad for Adrian here, becauseit's tough, you know?

(01:26:14):
Like, you're a teenager, you're having all these feelings that you're not fullyunderstanding, and it's like, you know?
But again, it's up to Nick to set those boundaries, but he doesn't, and he doesn't, andonce he's starting to try, it's too late, like the ship has already said.
We also get Chekov's wasp nest.

(01:26:35):
Yes we do!
Try saying that a couple of times.
yeah, there's the Amy is going off on the property.
They like there's a barbecue.
Amy's going to collect some sticks to roast marshmallows.
And we see Adrian, uh you know, standing underneath this wasp nest and talking about it.

(01:26:55):
And that's, that's the first sense you get.
think that Adrian might actually be dangerous.
yeah, she, I mean it's, it is very much like we know.
eh
we saw the trailer, you know, like, but, but, but Amy has it, you know, and, and, uh, Nickalso realizes that Adrian took a picture of him with his grandfather.

(01:27:16):
get a picture of him as a child with his grandfather that Adrian had commented on earlier.
And here's, God, I mean, you just, I'm watching it you're just like, Oh my God, don't dothis, man.
Like he goes into the house.
He thinks the house is empty.
He goes into the house to look for the picture.
I'm just like, dude, just.
Knock on the door when somebody's home.

(01:27:37):
Don't do this.
Yeah.
Don't do this.
Don't sneak into the teenage girls bedroom and go snooping.
oh Worst decision.
I'm literally shouting it like, don't do it, man.
Don't, don't do it.
But what's interesting is the room is a little bit like Sarah's room in Labyrinth.
It's very full of stuff.

(01:27:57):
And if you look, it gives you clues to like understanding this girl.
Like there's a lot of horse centric stuff, a lot of ribbons and awards, that giantwithering Heights poster.
Oh, okay.
There's a half dissected bug.
That's weird.
you know, like who leaves in the middle?

(01:28:20):
Who does that in their bedroom?
And then who leaves it in the middle?
And then there's some needle point with AF plus NE and dude, don't pick up her underwear,whatever you do.
Like what, what?
my God.
just, just, it's just, it.

(01:28:42):
You're like, please man, just don't be doing this.
Yeah, thankfully, ah you know, he's not going to make an even worse decision momentarily.
Because guess what?
Of course, someone is actually in the house and that someone is Adrian.
So Nick ends up hiding in Adrian's closet as she enters the room and she clearly realizeshe's there.

(01:29:06):
He moves in the closet and he hits a hanger.
Yeah.
And like, that's when I think she realized he was there and she takes off her shirt.
She's just standing there naked in front of him.
Again, you don't see anything, but like,
It's honestly, I thought it was more sort of subversive than anything in poison Ivy.

(01:29:28):
was just like the way, like it was just like,
And the amount of sweat that they apply to carry Ellis in the closet.
And when he comes out and you can really see it in the light, once he comes out, holymoly.
oh It is like the meme of the key and peel episode with the sweat just pouring down.

(01:29:49):
Oh my God.
he, she leaves, he exits the closet, but as he's going out the front door, I don't knowwhy he didn't come out the way he came through that side window, like full-size fringe
door window, but he goes out the front door, he runs right into Adrian's father, again,played by Gertwin Smith.
Who knows exactly what movie he is in?

(01:30:11):
I can tell you his performance.
He is a treasure in this movie.
my God.
He's amazing.
like he, Nick makes up some excuse about returning a book to Adrian and, and this was alsothe first time I noticed the weird audio thing when Nick said Adrian, then I noticed it
more, but then the father takes Nick up to the attic.

(01:30:31):
And we mentioned this before where he keeps a full size carousel that he has restored.
It is, it is both awesome and deeply weird.
Those same person.
has started their addict.
It is the least believable thing in this movie.
I was like in the final act, clearly that's going to come crashing down, right?

(01:30:57):
was like, the moment I saw that carousel, was like, the climax of the movie has got totake place here.
You don't build that.
Now, it is Chekhov's carousel.
It's Chekhov's carousel for sure.
that thing as a set piece to not use in the final confrontation.
my God.
And then they have this whole conversation with Nick and the dad about how Adrian hasblossomed that year.

(01:31:22):
my God.
bonkers.
plan was to turn this whole attic into the kind of playroom, you know, for Adrian.
Only problem was, she never took to it.
Now I can't get the damn thing down.
You know, Nick, Adrian's a very special girl.

(01:31:42):
Mm-hmm.
She's, she's very bright.
This past year, she's really, blossom.
Physically, I mean.
Mm.
I noticed.
You know, I swear to God, not a night goes by I don't lay awake dreading that knock on thedoor.

(01:32:05):
You know what I'm talking about, you?
Not really.
Some friggin' kid will be standing there with his heart on, sticking out his pants.
Hope I don't go breaking it off.
Hi, Daddy.

(01:32:30):
Hi, sweetheart.
We were just talking about you.
Honestly, it makes the movie all that much better if you imagine that Kurt Wood Smith isplaying the same character he did in Robocop.
It's like this is his home watch.
I'd buy that for a dollar, Chris.
And of course, Adrian comes up, she covers for Nick's lie.

(01:32:50):
Here's the other thing.
When they first entering that attic, there's an oil painting of Adrian as a little girl inthe attic.
It's kind of off to the side.
And you just if you catch it, it's like no sane person would commission a portrait oftheir child with those eyes.
Like it's she's got crazy eyes in her oil painting portrait.

(01:33:14):
my God.
It's just it's.
Again, this family is clearly nuts.
Nick tries to talk to Adrienne about things, but things go very badly.
And again, at this point, Nick should just move.
There's no way out of this except to just leave.
I will say that when Nick raises his voice to her, a little bit of Carrie Elwes' Englishaccent slips out.

(01:33:35):
A little bit.
And then Nick finishes restoring his car, because he's been working on this car for mostof the movie, and only to find the words, cocksucker.
scratched across the front.
So this is where he's gonna move, I'm sure.
This apparently happened to Alan Shapiro.
This is actually an incident from like the real life version.

(01:33:56):
No, apparently the actual words were Alan sucks.
Ah, well.
scratched into the front of the car.
And you know, mean, honestly, yeah, he should just move.
Instead, he goes to the parents with no proof that Adrian was responsible.
Like he's still, just know it.
Well, like honestly, if I was her dad, I wouldn't take that.
You know, I wouldn't be like, you know, how do you know?

(01:34:18):
know?
Cheyenne does approach Nick to tell him something and to arrange, and she like arranges ameeting later.
Like I'll meet you somewhere at like, you know, midnight or whatever.
uh
But then Adrian, she sees them and she sabotages Cheyenne's saddle during the ride.
She's devious!
She's devious!

(01:34:40):
yeah, what I love too is that this wasn't necessarily Adrian knowing that her friend wasgoing to warn.
She thought it was Nick was becoming interested in her friend and her friend was trying tosteal Nick from her, which makes much more sense.
Right, cause she's got that line later, you wanna fuck her too.

(01:35:01):
Yeah, so it it doesn't require on Adrian being omnipotent or something or omniscient.
uh
totally, totally.
And then, we get the, I mean, again, you mentioned this movie is bonkers, but the curve onthis going from sane to crazy is a much more gentle curve.
Like here, it just feels like everything, you know, kind of, it felt organic in a way.

(01:35:26):
Well, yeah, because it's, bonkers from the get go, right?
From almost your meat cute is almost, you know, running into her and her not caring.
And like, she can rewrite your article and send it to your magazine editor and you don'teven know.
mean, just like it is, my belief has been suspended.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.

(01:35:47):
Or my disbelief has been suspended.
And the other thing is the movie, as Adrian's behavior gets more and more insane, themovie itself reflects that in its style.
So it's very deliberately like the escalation is very deliberate.
Nick soon finds that the disc with all the information for his big story has been erased.

(01:36:07):
And he's searching for this information.
He finds Adrian apparently built an absolutely bunker shrine to him in the garageunderneath.
like underneath his apartment without him ever hearing it.
It's like amazing.
This thing is huge.
Yeah, it's ah it does.
It's almost like the Jason shrine to his mother in Friday the 13th part to you get the youget a bigger version later.

(01:36:31):
But
my God, the version later is I'm shocked it didn't set the house on fire.
And even while he's trying to reconstitute his work, she keeps calling him and calling himand he doesn't answer and he hangs up.
And the way this escalates, really in the course of like one scene, it really escalatesthe tension with how it does like the phone calls and him hanging up.

(01:36:57):
And he gets the reconstituted article to his boss.
You hear the boss say, like, it's just a kind of, people out there are very simple minded,treat them as such.
And I will bet dollars to donuts that is something Alan Shapiro heard a studio executivesay once and he put it into the movie.
ah So finally, Nick gets a new apartment.

(01:37:19):
He's getting ready to move out.
Amy comes to help him pack and the two end up sleeping together.
And Nick has this dream that Adrian's in his room.
Uh, like he, and, there was a moment where I was like, she actually there, like it playedit really, really well.
And then you hear her in the main house, just absolutely destroying lemons to make lemon.

(01:37:41):
Like she's literally chopping lemons, which with like a hatchet.
It's like amazing.
We've never seen a lemonade though.
No, and a big house.
apparently mom and dad didn't hear this absolutely psychotic lemonade.
absentee parents.
uh And then the next day she encounters Amy on her way out.

(01:38:05):
Hello, Adrian.
How are you today?
Fine.
That's good.
Hey, Amy.
What?
What'd do last night?
What do mean?
I mean you slept at Nick's, you?
Adrian.
Well, I mean, you know.

(01:38:29):
Adrian, let me explain a little something to you.
One day when you're all grown up and you have a real relationship, you'll realize yourfeelings for Nick were just a thing.
Just a crush.
In fact, I bet by the time school starts, you'll have completely forgotten all about him.
When I grow up, I hope I can be just as smart as you.

(01:38:53):
Adrian, go play.
Go play is just such a withering put down.
Holy shit.
Like that is.
Oh man, like.
that Amy wishes she'd seen the trailer.
She might've played that differently.
Well, here's the thing.
She's going to pay for it because they didn't show those wasps earlier for nothing.

(01:39:16):
So Adrian follows Amy home, locks her in her dark room, and then, like, which is like theshed behind her house, she then seals it up and releases the wasps inside.
Rob, the logistics on this are incredible.
my god.
I mean, this is some next level sleep away camp type behavior here.

(01:39:42):
And my absolute my favorite thing is the the coda on this little sequence or the the end.
Yeah, because she's developing a picture of Adrian.
Yeah.
Yeah, accidentally took I guess like
Mm hmm.
That Amy smashes the window to try and let bees out, but it lets the light in.

(01:40:03):
And then the picture of Adrian goes completely black.
Like, me all the symbolism, baby.
Do it.
Yeah.
There are metaphors in this movie, Rob, and I know what they mean.
Yes.
Yes.
The subtext is text in this movie and I am here for it.
Yeah.
Oh, and just like, she had to know, like, the things she had to know, like, she had toknow that Amy had a dark room that was a separate self-contained space.

(01:40:31):
It doesn't work if it's just her basement or her bathroom.
Like, second, how did she get there?
How did she transport the wasp nest there?
I'm not complaining!
I'm impressed!
And you know, you know, you're having a good time because I did not ask a single one ofthose questions while watching this.
You know what I, you know, was the little man inside of my head behind my eyes, which isgoing the last.

(01:40:57):
Yes.
That's literally all that was going on.
my God.
So then Nick doesn't show up to Adrian's equestrian competition, which frankly, why, whyon earth would he at this point?
Um, and so then she basically shows up at like the big charity gala at Nick's work andmakes a scene that basically makes it look like they're having an affair.

(01:41:20):
And, it's like, man, you just, just, just leave town.
Don't even worry.
Don't even pack your stuff.
Just go.
Cause when he comes home, the cops are there with a warrant for his arrest.
And Adrian has accused him of sexually assaulting her and raping her.
And apparently there is semen that the blood found, know, the semen that the police foundwhere it was matches Nick's blood type.

(01:41:44):
Shades of presumed innocent.
Yeah, I was gonna say and he didn't even get the rusty savage haircut
These cops are terrible at their job, by the way.
Like that whole interview scene.
But it's okay, Chris, because they're not Italian, so it's not slanderous.
true.
They're just generic cops, you know, it's Nick's boss is able to get him out on bail andhe tells him hopefully that the Foresters are leaving the house and once they're gone, he

(01:42:12):
can get his stuff.
that night Nick is packing up and he's drinking and what's he drinking Rob?
A and B baby, J and B scotch.
I was so happy.
Oh, gosh.
Shades of, of a with a crystal.
movie ever.
Free geolo movie.

(01:42:33):
Like again, that's no coincidence.
This movie knows what it is.
Yeah.
Your vice is a locked garage.
Oh, The key.
Yeah.
uh
Cheyenne comes to him and tells him the thing that she wanted to tell him earlier, whichis that not long ago, Adrian developed a crush on her camp counselor and then killed him

(01:42:58):
with poison.
And unlike the push from the balcony, this I completely believe.
just, it's a spiked suspended all disbelief and just was like, yeah, totally.
She could totally do that.
Yeah.
And this is a weird one in that the movie's answer to what made her like this is it'salmost Michael Myers ask.
She was kind of, you know, she was this way from before this movie started.

(01:43:23):
Yeah, no, she was, that was just it.
mean, you could, you know, get into the backstory of she's too smart for her own good andher parents, you know, maybe gave her too long.
It's a lot of things.
She just is how she is.
That's all there is.
And Cheyenne does mention to Nick that there's a diary.
There's a diary here that's actually mentioned.

(01:43:44):
Poison Ivy's diary, which is the basis for the sequels, isn't even seen.
Here there's a diary mentioned and I think we might see her writing in it.
like a couple of times.
I think we see her writing in it a couple of times, but like Nick to his credit does notrush over to the house to try and find the diary.
Like he says, he'll tell the police about it.

(01:44:04):
Instead it's Cheyenne who goes over to the house.
And then before long Nick hears music from the supposedly empty house and she goes over,there's lights on, candles everywhere.
And again,
Clearly, Adrienne has escaped from her parents.
I don't know how she did it, but, you know, she's capable of anything.

(01:44:25):
She's a supervillain, Rob.
It is a little bit like watching the end of Unbreakable that way.
You're just like,
Like she has set up the shrine on her bed and there's so many candles I'm surprised thatthe bed didn't go up immediately.
Yeah.
And you get the, uh, the tombstone.
Uh, here lies Judith Myers.

(01:44:46):
Yeah.
the photo of him and his grandfather and his child's face is scratched out in anger.
That's part of it.
Cause that's here, right?
Absolutely.
No, it's on the shrine.
It's a key in on it for sure.

(01:45:06):
Like this girl, like, but like she escaped from her parents wherever they took her.
Like you said, down the coast.
Okay.
Like, and she escaped from her parents and got back to her house.
This woman, this girl, she gets around and not in a metaphorical way.
Like she can be anywhere that she needs to be.
They told us she was kind of a genius prodigy and she is.

(01:45:30):
It's just an evil genius.
Exactly, exactly.
And she attacks Nick, she comes out, she attacks Nick, she sends him careening down thestairs, but of course, in the end, Nick has to go up to the attic for the final
confrontation.
You don't build a full working carousel to not confront the bad.
There's no way, like there's no way.

(01:45:51):
And of course, like the carousel starts up, Cheyenne is tied to it.
How did she get her up there?
Like it's one of those collapsible ladder things to get up to the attic.
How did she carry Cheyenne up the ladder?
Pure spite.
Pure spite.
father shows up, he's been chasing her, he's clearly on his daughter's tail, but he'sdelayed by the fact that he doesn't have a stepladder in the house.

(01:46:16):
So he can't get up to the attic.
He can't like open the thing.
We have this final battle on the carousel where it's going around and around.
Sparks are flying everywhere.
The father gets up there.
He starts choking out Nick, but then Adrian knocks a dad out because she doesn't, shewants Nick for all for herself.
Yeah.

(01:46:36):
And, then
She comes running at Nick.
She's running right towards him with his poker or whatever she's holding.
And he just hauls off and hits her and punches her right in the face and sends her flyingacross the room.
I don't mean she just kind of got knocked over.

(01:46:57):
She goes like 20 feet.
It's amazing.
when she's charging him with that poker and it's almost like Alice at the end of the firstFriday the 13th kind of slow mo a little bit.
Kaboom and she flies.
Yeah, it's like blazing saddles or something where it's just like
my God.

(01:47:17):
Yeah.
She must go 20 feet.
It's, is incredible.
again, this movie is a wild ride.
It is, but again, as you say, poison Ivy was trying to be a couple of different movies andas a consequence, it wasn't any, it didn't successfully achieve being any of them.
This movie knows exactly what it is and it just, it does that thing and it's amazing.

(01:47:43):
And this movie sets up the sequel on its own.
It's not going to wait at all because Nick punching her out is not the end of the movie.
No, no, no, because we see her, we see Adrienne in a hospital getting treatment.
She's writing Nick letters, which I'm honestly surprised they let her send.
Nick has got a new place, Amy has recovered.
But the last we see of Adrienne, she's got this handsome young doctor who's treating her,who seems to understand her.

(01:48:09):
And she's got a photo of the handsome young doctor.
And we fade out on a close up of her face as she's looking at the handsome doctor.
Yeah, she's got a framed photo.
like free.
So she stole it from his office and hit it or something.
She also has Nick's new address.
This one, she is a genius.

(01:48:32):
You cannot run.
cannot hide from a.
Of all of the characters that we had in this series so far, of all of the villainouscharacters, Adrian is the one I most want to see in a legacy sequel.
Most of them are dead at the end.

(01:48:53):
know, most of them have been killed at the end.
Here, not so much.
I want to see a legacy sequel about how Adrian's life turned out.
Because
Rob, she's not spending the rest of her life in that institution.
She's gonna get out.
She's very bright.
Who did she grow up to be?
Like, I wanna know.

(01:49:14):
Okay, I'm just throwing this out there because this will never happen.
I want her to have actually turned a new leaf.
So she's getting out of prison right now.
Right?
Right.
Reformed.
She moves in above someone's garage and their teenage son becomes obsessed with her.

(01:49:35):
Rob, I'm gonna say great minds because I'm gonna read you what I wrote down.
I'm reading verbatim from my notes.
30 years later, a now adult Adrienne is leading a relatively normal, successful life whena much younger man develops a crush on her, bringing old demons to the surface.

(01:49:59):
Get Alicia Silverstone on the phone, cause you know what?
This would be amazing.
This is amazing.
I really want to do this movie.
my God.
Like it's, it's, it's, this would be great.
This is the legacy sequel you do.
There's so many legacy sequels have been done the last few years that are just that, youknow, you know, I mean, every once in a while you get a top gun Maverick, which is

(01:50:19):
obviously amazing, but like there's a lot where it's like, ah, you didn't need to do that.
This is the one you do the crush to.
my God.
Oh,
So the crush did a little bit better at the box-offs than Poison Ivy in no small part tohaving an actual wide release, which Poison Ivy never got.
But like many of the films in the series, it really found its audience on home video andcable.

(01:50:43):
And both of today's films have become kind of cult classics.
You know, they seem on the surface, the two movies seem like the inverse of one another.
Like the first one, Poison Ivy is about a dangerous stranger coming into a family from theoutside.
Whereas the crush, you have the normal person enter a situation where the dangerousstranger is waiting for them.

(01:51:08):
So there's, like on the surface, there's that difference.
Yeah.
And in the, in the crush, you don't really get the class differences that you do in poisonIvy.
Like the family has more money because like, you know, clearly they have, you know, theirupper middle class, they have good jobs.
He doesn't have that much money because he's at the beginning of his career, but like hasthe potential to, know, like he's well educated.

(01:51:34):
It's, there isn't the class distinction, but here's the thing.
Like as much as they seem like they're kind of the reverse of one another, they'rebasically both about, I think a person enters a house.
occupied by a deranged family and little by little is driven to extreme behavior.
These families are nuts!

(01:51:54):
They are absolutely bonkers.
And again, it's so funny.
You think of the roads not taken if fatal attraction had survived with its originalending, where Alex died by suicide, tried to frame Dan, and then they just found the alibi
and Dan was going to get out.
And you didn't have that big fight.
Like all of these movies have the big fight at the end.

(01:52:15):
These two have the big fights at the end.
uh Poison Ivy, it's interesting.
And the big fight is very short in that.
You know, Sylvie is in kind of a daze thinking it's her mom and then it just kind ofhappens.
it's yeah, it's you know, there's more lead up to it than that obviously with the but it'snot an extended fight like it is in Fatal Attraction, the crush it is an extended.

(01:52:40):
And an amazing one at that.
Oh my God.
is one for the book.
It's so funny to me just so far, ah you know, the movies that have stuck closest to thebeats of the original are the ones that have been the most successful.
Yeah.
Which isn't the true of every trend for me at least.

(01:53:01):
And I know some of this is just personal, you know, taste, but those that have kind oftried to branch out a little further, it just has, I haven't seen one that has quite
worked.
Yeah.
I guess in part because the one that did it most, that branched out most successfully weresaving for a different series, but.
Right.
In a sense, that there'll be a, basic instinct series that we'll eventually do.

(01:53:23):
But yeah, no, I think you're right.
Like the ones that have really worked, like unlawful entry, single white female, uh, likethey do stick to that fatal attraction, you know, that, that fatal attraction model,
again, complete with the big, the big fight at the end.
Like there's, that's, it's so interesting to think of how different this all go.
We're not having this series if fatal attraction has its original ending.

(01:53:47):
Oh, hell no.
This is not happening.
I don't know what we're talking about in the spring of 2025, but it isn't fatalattraction.
Anyway, I think that is the place to stop for today, but we'll be back next week when welook at two movies that explore what can happen when that dangerous stranger is found in
the workplace.

(01:54:08):
We'll look at 1993's The Temp with Lara Flynn Boyle and Timothy Hutton, and from 1994,Disclosure, based on the Michael Crichton novel and starring
Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.
So it's gonna be interesting and uh I'm very excited for that episode.
Again, thank you all so much for listening.

(01:54:30):
We are your hosts, Chris Iannicote and Rob Lemorgis.
If you've enjoyed our show, please consider subscribing and following us on Blue Sky,Instagram, threads and Twitter at Get Me Another Pod.
In addition, check out the Justin Beam Radio or wherever you listen to podcasts and youcould find Justin's book, Roadside Memories at JustinBeam.com or wherever books are sold.
If you like the show, tell your friends about it.

(01:54:52):
Tell your enemies about it.
Tell that guy with the carousel in his attic about it, but steer clear of his teenagedaughter because she has powers beyond comprehension.
And join us next time as we continue to explore what happens when Hollywood says, get meanother.