The Set (3.5/5)

    The 90's was boom time for the erotic thriller. Though they existed in various forms for years, the late 80's success story Fatal Attraction, combined with the early 90's Basic Instinct opened the doors for lots of titillating thrillers to get greenlit during this period.  This was the period that made Shannon Tweed a star in her own right. Of course, a lot of the success of these films comes from the fact that they were video store darlings. A viewer might be less inclined to see something promoted as sexy in the theater with prying eyes watching them as much as the screen, but with video stores that wasn't entirely the case.
 

    Into this comes the Poison Ivy sequence, 4 films from 1992-2008 (the last was a Lifetime film). These films could be considered the beginnings of the sub-genre of film that has young innocent stars, attempting to break their prior innocent casting. The original film stars Drew Barrymore in a role that is meant to blow her pre-teen, little kid image out of the water. The same could be said for Part II's Alyssa Milano, who acted in the wholesome sitcom Who's The Boss in the 80's, and used this as a springboard out of that type-casting.

    The film's have a basic template with a young woman moving in with a pre-existing family, and trying to take over using her oozing sexuality. The first film starts Drew Barrymore as Ivy, a young girl who moves into the mansion  of her new friend Sylvie played by Sara Gilbert.  Sylvie's Dad is a religious TV personality, and her Mom is basically dying.  Ivy attempts to shake up things and though she helps the Mom with her illness, it is quite obvious she is trying to oust her.

    The second film stars Alyssa Milano as art student "Lily". Lily comes across Ivy's diaries and becomes obsessed with her.  Lily ends up becoming the babysitter for one of her teaches, and like Ivy before her, attempts to integrate herself into this family's life.  The third film New Seduction) acts more as a prequel and sequel to the original. It opens with a younger version of Ivy and her sister Violet observing a violent love-triangle between Ivy's Dad, the Housekeeper in her home, and another man.  The story then picks up a decade later with Violet visiting a friend of hers Joy, and ends up living in her home and exploiting the situation like the 2 "Ivy's" before her.

    The 4th film came 11 years after New Seduction and was created as a Lifetime film. This film is an interesting spin on Ivy's Diaries from Part II. Now, Ivy has become a legend, and has a society built up around her existence. A young woman named Daisy goes to a college far from home, and ends up being recruited by the Ivy society, where she has to get Ivy's tattoo, amongst other things. The film plays around with the question of whether or not Daisy will delve into the Ivy lifestyle.

    The film's are fun all throughout, but nothing to write home about. The original is still the best of the 4, though 13 year old me, would have argued for the Milano-led part II. The others don't hold a candle to that, but make for fun late night viewing.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    All 4 films were presented 1:85:1 transfers which is a change from their original 1:33:1 presentations, but everything looks like it was shot to be shown this way. Detail is solid, colors are stable, and everything looks fine.   The only thing that stands out, and it is entirely expected are the SD inserts which help add footage to the unrated cuts of the films.

    Audio is handled by a series of quite solid DTS-HD MA tracks in English. These tracks deliver as they need to, with dialogue and score coming through clearly.

Extras (1.5/5)

    We get a Katt Shea commentary on the first film, all 4 films in their unrated versions (Even 4), and trailers.

Overall

    Though the series declines immediately after the 2nd film, they all are reasonably entertaining to watch. The Blu-ray's look solid, but are limited in extras. RECOMMENDED.