Poison (film)

Plot

• Hero: Seven-year-old Richie shoots his abusive father and then flies away. The story is told in the style of an episode of a tabloid television news magazine.
• Horror: Told in the style of a "psychotropic horror film" of the mid-1960s, Horror is about a scientist who isolates the "elixir of human sexuality" and, after drinking it, is transformed into a hideous murdering leper.
• Homo: The story of a prisoner, John Broom, who finds himself attracted to another prisoner, Jack Bolton, whom he had known and seen humiliated as a youth in a juvenile facility. It is an adaptation of part of Genet's The Miracle of the Rose.

  Cast

• Scott Renderer as John Broom
• James Lyons as Jack Bolton
• Edith Meeks as Felicia Beacon
• Millie White as Millie Sklar
• Buck Smith as Gregory Lazar
• Rob LaBelle as Jay Wete
• John Leguizamo as Chanchi
• Anne Giotta as Evelyn McAlpert
• Lydia Lafleur as Sylvia Manning
• Ian Nemser as Sean White
• Evan Dunsky as Dr. MacArthur
• Susan Gayle Norman as Dr. Nancy Olsen
• Marina Lutz as Hazel Lamprecht
• Barry Cassidy as Officer Rilt
• Richard Anthony as Edward Comacho
• Angela M. Schreiber as Florence Giddens
• Justin Silverstein as Jake
• Chris Singh as Chris
• Edward Allen as Fred Beacon
• Larry Maxwell as Dr. Graves

  Release

Reception

Awards and nominations

• Berlin International Film Festival Teddy Award for Best Feature Film, 1991
• Fantasporto Critics' Award, 1992 ; International Fantasy Film Award Best Film, 1992
• Independent Spirit Awards Best Director, 1992 ; Best First Feature, 1992
• Locarno International Film Festival Golden Leopard, 1991
• Sitges - Catalan International Film Festival Special Prize of the Jury, 1991, "For keeping the subversive values inherent to any genuine poetry in force"
• Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic, 1991

  Footnotes

1. ^ The final credits specifically cite Our Lady of the Flowers, The Miracle of the Rose, and The Thief's Journal.