A starkly original film-going experience based on a true life story, this film from New Zealand director Peter Jackson is a stirring drama that offers up the unexpected.

The story concerns two girls, outcasts who become best friends, whose bizarre fantasy life becomes more intense as their bond becomes increasingly more obsessive. When the mother of one of the girls tries to intervene and split the girls apart, they kill her and stand trial for murder in what is to this day still a celebrated and controversial case. Kate Winslet (Titanic) and Melanie Lynskey create two sympathetic and yet uncomfortably eerie characters in riveting portrayals.

A thrilling and provocative movie, 'Heavenly Creatures' is a gripping entertainment and a must-see.

This is an amazing Peter Jackson film (pre Lord of the RIngs) Jackson's career trajectory really leaves me confused. He went from gory low brow B movies like Bad Taste to mainstream fair like Heavenly Creatures to Lord of the Rings. Consistency, please.
Heavenly Creatures is at first a sweet movie about the friendship between two teen girls that moves to being a little odd, to awkward, to disturbing. One of these girls is crazy and takes the other one to crazytown with her. (via Amazon)

Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) directed this true story about two outcasts in 1954 New Zealand who become best friends. When one of their mothers tries to split them apart, they kill her - natch. The movie goes in depth to their fantasy life - taken from the more solemn girl's diary. Right before the movie came out, the writer Anne Perry confessed that she was the girl played by Kate Winslet. The girls were obsessed with Orson Welles, and called him "IT".
Right before they kill the mother, they all go out for tea. The mother is going to forgo a pastry, but her daughter, knowing that the usual consequences of eating a sweet won't apply, pushes it towards her mother and says, "Go ahead, Mum. Treat yourself."
Creepy, eerie, beautifully imagined.