Heavenly Creatures (1994)

 Directed by Peter Jackson

Full disclosure: this movie depicts real life events of the 1954 Parker-Hume case.

Trigger Warning for 1950s conservative New Zealand Homophobia and sexual assault/violence against a minor. 

Before the Lord of the RIngs, before the Titanic, before Yellowjackets, there was a delightful yet frightening movie that clocks in at a tight 99 mins called Heavenly Creatures.I could give you the full TL;DR but google is free, I want to talk about the real people’s princess Melanie Lynskey…  She was literally living that goth girl realness arguing about music with shitty boys at the local cemetery after school and then Fran Walsh was driving around New Zealand and happened upon her improv class. Fully projecting: but if her character Pauline Parker had the chance to read Stone Butch Blues she would be dyke with a funky gender in 2023 and nothing bad would have happened. 

There are two pieces of this movie that go “unadvertised” due to the “true crime-ness” of it all. The first piece, the genuine romantic longing that a lot of queer people growing up had for a friend of the same sex without quite understanding what that feeling is…  If you’re on the “cool” part of the internet you’ve probably seen gif sets of this without any context. 

The second piece is the dream sequences with the giant clay sculptures. I love their evil clay murder son that’s supposed to look like Orson Wells but because he's a modeling clay sculpture made by a child he looks like William Shatner. 

Baby Melanie Lynskey’s kiwi accent contrasted with baby Kate Winslet’s precocious Britishisms is adorable.  “All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases, it's all frightfully romantic”.

IS ICONIC QUEER CINEMAAAAA 

I feel like this movie does a good job of showcasing the tunnel vision you tend to get when you’re a kid and your mom tells you no. It’s easier to rationalize that your mother is the only thing standing in the way between you and your girlfriend running away together and not the fact that you’re only 15 years old and have no money in the remotely isolated New Zealand countryside. Honestly they should have been channeling this hostility towards Dr. Hulme and his stinky stinky sandwich jacket because he’s the one who introduced homophobia in the first place. 

The Extras:

Bottoms 

Wet Hot American Summer meets Fight Club made by the same funny gay people who made 

Shiva Baby. Soundtrack by Charli XCX. I saw it in theaters twice and plan on pirating watching it again when it goes digital. 

Psycho Beach Party 

iconic camp cinema featuring a T4T crime fighting duo trying to stop secret split personality murderer baby Lauren Ambrose. Could be a perfect movie if you just edited out the weirdly placed racism. 

Bonus: 

All jacked up and full of worms

Exactly what it says it is. Watch it with a friend. 

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