35th anniversary of Todd Haynes's New Queer Cinema classic.
The second feature directed by Haynes, this groundbreaking American indie was one of the most fervently debated film of the early 1990s and a trailblazing landmark of queer cinema. A work of immense visual invention; audacious, disturbing, and thrillingly cinematic.
Inspired by the writings of Jean Genet, POISON deftly interweaves a 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.