Poison: Presented by OC Pride
The Frida Cinema's seating is first-come, first-serve. For our Midnight Screenings, please plan on arriving by 11:30pm to ensure ample time for parking, picking up concessions, and securing optimal seats. Screening will begin promptly at midnight.
Director: Todd Haynes Run Time: 85 min. Release Year: 1991
Starring: Anne Giotta, Buck Smith, Edith Meeks, Lydia Lafleur, Millie White
The second feature directed by Todd Haynes, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of Far from Heaven and Carol, Poison is the next film up in our Art House 101: Global Queer Cinema series. Thank you to our friends at OC Pride for presenting these screenings!
This groundbreaking American Indie was the most fervently debated film of the early 1990s and a trailblazing landmark of queer cinema. A work of immense visual invention, Haynes’ spectacular follow-up to his legendary Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story is audacious, disturbing and thrillingly cinematic.
Inspired by the writings of Jean Genet, Poison deftly interweaves trio of transgressive tales-“Hero,” “Horror” and “Homo”-that build toward a devastating climax. “Hero,” shot in mock TV-documentary style, tells a bizarre story of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice; “Horror,” filmed like a delirious ’50s B-movie melodrama, is a gothic tale of a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague; while “Homo” explores the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.
A runaway hit which made national headlines when it was attacked by right-wing figures including Dick Armey, Ralph Reed and minister Donald Wildmon, Poison is unsettling, unforgettable and thoroughly entertaining.
This screening is generously sponsored by:
