heavenly creatures

Heavenly Creatures is a terrific movie that plays very well eight years after its release. In its sympathetic portrait of half-crazed murdering best friends, it's a match for Sid and Nancy. Seeing it in 2002, you're reminded that there was a time when Kate Winslet was an unknown actress; seeing it in 2002 you're reminded that Peter Jackson made great movies before Lord of the Rings. I was also reminded that when we first saw this film when it came out, it seemed v.tame in comparison to the gross-out classics that Jackson made early in his career: the cheap Bad Taste, the delightfully disgusting Muppet-trashing Meet the Feebles, and the all-time Mom-Exists-To-Devour-Me champ, Brain Dead/Dead Alive. Every one of those movies was completely and utterly revolting. In 1994, Heavenly Creatures seemed like a movie from a different director entirely, but now with LOTR behind us, Creatures seems very disturbing and much more of a piece with Jackson's early work than it seemed at the time.