Poison Ivy: The Secret Society (2008)

Poison Ivy: The Secret Society is the “sexy girl version of The Skulls” (Wikipedia), but I think it’s more like the 'dumb blonde version.' I'm not saying that the protagonist's intellectual ineptitude is directly related to her gender or hair color; her golden mane and femininity are just an unfortunate coincidence.

Danielle Brooks (Miriam McDonald) is a farm girl — completing the trifecta of stereotypes — who transfers to Berkshire College, an elite New England private school. Danielle sold the property she inherited from her late parents to pay for school, and yet the best she can afford is a work-study program. Oh, and her nickname is Daisy. How do I know all this? It’s all in the "Berkshire Transfer Students Official List," (BTSOL, if you’re into the whole brevity thing) of which we even see a copy. I swear, they could show a character literally reading directly off the script, and it wouldn’t be as dumb as this.

Daisy, by the way, is the name of a flower, as is Azalea (Shawna Waldron), who is the president of the Ivys, a "secret" society that everyone on campus knows about; on the other hand, it must be impossible to keep a secret in a college so small that, as far as we can see, only offers one single, solitary course, attended by all the main characters, and taught by Professor Andrew Graves (Greg Evigan), who is not only married to the dean (Catherine Hicks), but is also the father of Daisy's romantic interest, Blake (Ryan Kennedy).

Azalea learns that Daisy is a shoo-in to get a coveted internship; the former’s plan to prevent this from happening is to get Daisy to join the so-called secret society. “Turning the farm girl into an Ivy won't stop her from getting the internship,” Blake warns her; Azalea's response is "yeah, we'll see about that". Spoiler alert: we never see about that.

What we do see is the Ivy’s vast influence (one can't help but wonder why Azalea doesn't just use this leverage to nab the internship for herself). Once Daisy is accepted, she doesn't have to worry about money anymore; “Who do you think made your financial aid problems go away? Who do you think gave you your scholarship?” Azalea asks rhetorically. To my chagrin, though, she doesn't ask who makes Steve Guttenberg a star.

Do the writers (unbelievably, it took three people to write this movie) really expect us to believe that, on top of selling the family ranch or whatever, Daisy still needs not only a student loan but also a scholarship, or do they just not understand the difference between the two?

I lean towards option B, especially after seeing the way Azalea blackmails Daisy, which involves Will (Brendan Penny), Daisy’s rancher boyfriend whom she left behind (“how do you know about Will,” Daisy asks; my guess is she must have read it on BTSOL).

Azalea claims to "have this piece of paper and at the top it says "title deed", at the bottom, a name and it's "William Miller"." Daisy never even demands to see this document, so she may just be dumb enough to believe that "Will's land" really "is at stake," as Azalea later assures her; moreover, recording Azalea's confession and immediately playing the tape back to her is likewise not the action of a person of at least adequate intelligence.

Sep 14, 2022