Poison Ivy is a 1992 American erotic thriller film directed by Katt Shea.

[2] Although it did not fare very well at the box office, grossing $1,829,804 with its limited theatrical release to 20 movie theaters, the film received favorable word-of-mouth, and became a success on cable and video in the mid-1990s.

On the day she first meets Ivy, a poor street-smart girl, she witnesses her mercy-killing a badly wounded dog.

When they next meet, Sylvie's father Darryl comes to pick her up, Ivy asks for a ride, and he reluctantly agrees.

She sits in the front with him, puts her feet on the dashboard and deliberately shows him her legs by allowing her mini-skirt to fall back onto her hips, which Darryl notices.

They meet Sylvie's sickly mother, Georgie, whom Ivy wins over by talking about her scholarship and helping her unblock her oxygen tank.

Darryl throws a party at the house to improve his failing career, and enlists Sylvie to help him.

Georgie believes her, accepts a glass of champagne drugged with sleeping pills, and falls asleep.

In the hospital, Sylvie hallucinates that her mother visits her, inspiring her to return home to save her father from Ivy.

Producers Melissa Goddard and Peter Morgan brought the original idea to New Line.

The site's critics consensus reads, "An unpleasant thriller that lacks the self-awareness to dilute its sordid undertones, Poison Ivy is liable to give audiences a rash.

[7][8] Variety wrote: "Suicide, hints of lesbianism, murder, staged accidents and every other applicable melodramatic contrivance is dragged in.

"[9] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 2.5 out of 4 and wrote "Here the casting is so wrong that nothing quite works.

"[10] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "Katt Shea, who directed and co-wrote "Poison Ivy," displays a gleeful enthusiasm for the B-movie genre to which her film essentially belongs, as well as a grasp of the form's more delicate possibilities.

"[11] The character Ivy was ranked at number six on the list of the top 26 "bad girls" of all time by Entertainment Weekly.