Heavenly Creatures (1994) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 16

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‘Tis indeed a miracle one must feel that two such heavenly creatures are real.

Heavenly Creatures is a unique type of horror film, being more about the true horror of humanity rather than fantastical monsters or fictional serial killers. This differs from other non-supernatural genre films by the fact that it’s based on real events.

Before Viewing

The trailer for Heavenly Creatures looks unlike anything watched to date on 31 Days of Horror. Firstly it purports to be based on a real situation. Two young teenage girls become friends and share a fantasy world. But one of them starts to act erratically and questions her own sanity. It appears her mother (or another woman) strikes her on the face, followed by some shots of a bloody ax. The film was directed by Peter Jackson and seems like an intriguing experiment tonight.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

In 1952, Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) transfers into a girl’s high school in Christchurch, New Zealand. She meets and becomes friends with Pauline Rieper (Melanie Lynskey) when they bond over their childhood injuries. They soon become inseparable, playing together in the woods and listening to Mario Lanza records together. After a playful session one afternoon, they strip into their underwear and run through the underbrush before collapsing in a pile of leaves. The girls also take up sculpting characters together, something Pauline is particularly good at.

Juliet tells Pauline of a secret place called the Fourth World, which is like Heaven except with no Christians. The two begin creating stories of the rulers of the kingdom of Borovnia, Charles and Deborah. Juliet’s high class parents, Hilda (Diana Kent) and Henry (Clive Merrison) inform her they are planning a trip to London without her, which upsets Juliet. Pauline writes in her journal that she believes the two girls have an extra part of their brain that allows them to see the Fourth World, an idyllic garden and castle populated by giant plasticine people.

Juliet develops tuberculosis and is placed into a nursing home while her parents take their trip. Pauline is upset that she cannot visit, but writes often. Sometimes she writes as Charles, the king of their fantasy world, and Juliet responds as Deborah. Juliet begins to fantasize about killing a priest that tries to introduce her to Christ. Pauline is finally able to come visit and is ecstatic to see Juliet again.

At the Rieper’s house, their border John (Jed Brophy) visits Pauline in her room one night. Her father Harold (Simon O’Connor) finds them together in bed and kicks John out of the house. Pauline’s mother, Honora (Sarah Peirse), is so upset she slaps her daughter. Pauline later sneaks out and has sex with John for the first time, all the while fantasizing she’s in Borovnia. Dr. Hulme stops by the Rieper’s to say he believes the girl’s relationship is “unhealthy.”

Honora takes Pauline to visit a doctor who believes she may be a homosexual, assuring the Rieper’s that medical cures happen all the time. Meanwhile Juliet’s parents have grown further apart, with her mother taking up an affair with a former counseling patient of hers, Bill (Peter Elliott). Pauline and her mother have an argument over schooling that results in her mother demanding she get a job and support herself. Pauline fantasizes her mother choking to death at dinner.

As the Hulme’s plan for divorce, they decide to send Juliet to live with an Aunt in South Africa. Pauline is heartbroken and the two plan to make enough money to run off to Hollywood and become stars. One night in the final weeks before Juliet leaves, the two girls “pretend” to make love like their “saints” would in Borovnia. The strained relationship between Honora and Pauline results in Pauline planning her mother’s murder with Juliet. After an afternoon tea with her mother, Pauline and Juliet go with her for a walk in the woods, where Pauline uses a brick in a stocking to bludgeon her mother to death. The postscript indicates that both girls were tried for murder, but were too young for the death penalty and detained in prison, eventually being released.

“People die every day.” – Pauline

As with some of the best horror films, Heavenly Creatures opens with the end of the film, depicting some horrific tragedy as two girls covered in blood come screaming for help. The film then informs audiences that the events of this film are based on two real people, Pauline Yvonne Parker and Juliet Marion Hulme, and the words of Pauline’s diary entries are her own. There have been films that purport to be based on real events, such as the Coen Brothers Fargo. And there have been horror films based on real characters and events, such as the life of serial killer Ed Gein being used as the basis for both Norman Bates in Psycho and the events of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. However this film is unique in both being a biography of sorts, depicting a real life killing based on the killer’s own words.

Director Peter Jackson working on the project adds some additional interest, and one of the reasons why this film was picked for 31 Days of Horror. He got his start in horror films, including Bad Taste and Braindead, before making Heavenly Creatures, and later The Frighteners, before switching genres to make the much lauded series of Middle Earth films. The girl’s story was a very popular and notable murder case in New Zealand when Jackson was growing up. He chose to approach it as a love story rather than as a horror film. It serves as much more of a drama than horror film, with Pauline’s infatuation with Juliet taking center stage. However horrific elements in the film all relate to the way people treat each other.

The most horrific aspect to modern audiences may be the doctor discussing Pauline’s possible homosexuality with her mother. Jackson cuts in for an extreme closeup of the doctor’s mouth when he says the word, which is treated (and viewed by Honora) as the worst prognosis ever. He cautions her not to panic and confirms that Pauline may have a mental disorder. Certainly not the way that things are looked at today. The film also shows just awful ways that parents treated their children. The Hulme’s would often go away for months at a time leaving Juliet on her own in the care of others. While the Rieper’s seemed oblivious to the day to day changes in their daughter, only getting upset when they catch her with a boy in her room (one that basically forced his way in, not that they cared to ask).

This may be one of the few films about a killer where the audience actually feels sorry (and pity) for the murderer. Pauline is in the middle of her adolescence and having a series of emotional changes. Even without the stresses of her family life, being a teenager is hard. Her detachment from the real world and the emotional involvement with a special friend, which she might not even have understood, takes those angry emotions she feels towards her mother and escalates them from fantasy into reality. On the day of the murder, Juliet rationalizes their decision by stating that she thinks Pauline’s mother knows what is going to happen and “doesn’t bear [them] any grudge.” Later at their tea time, Honora passes on taking the final sweet from the tray, but Pauline urges her to treat herself. A most sad and pitiable moment, as Pauline is offering up her mother’s final meal knowing what is to soon happen.

Jackson’s use of color and cinematography creates a mood and atmosphere which takes the audiences on a ride along with the girls. For scenes when Juliet and Pauline are together, he uses more color, brighter lighting, and an often swirling camera. The camera movements spinning around the two elicit the euphoria that they feel when they’re together. It’s at both times exhilarating and nauseous. When Pauline is alone, at the beginning of the film and at the times when Juliet is convalescing, the camera has no fluidity, and the imagery is decidedly drab. Pauline’s outfits are black or near black, and her face is always dour. The only time Jackson breaks from this rule is the ending, where the girls walk with Honora along the path. It is darker and moodier than other scenes. It sets an immediate tone that something bad is coming.

While Heavenly Creatures cannot compete with more traditional horror films, it’s horrific in its own way. Some of the scariest and most horrific tales can come from real life events. That’s part of what makes them so terrifying. It seems unconscionable that actual humans are capable of committing such atrocities against one another. For 99% of the films reviewed in 31 Days of Horror, audiences can shrug off the events knowing that they are fictitious. With this film it’s not that easy.

Assorted Musings

• This was the debut film for both Melanie Lynsky and Kate Winslet. Lynsky would also appear in Jackson’s The Frighteners, as well as Two and a Half Men and currently Yellowjackets. Winslet would star in Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Sense and Sensibility.
• The film has several references to Orson Welles, the “most hideous man alive,” according to Juliet. The girls throw a photo of him into a river, which the camera follows down a small waterfall. This mirrors a similar scene in Welles’ The Third Man, which the girls see in the cinema later in the movie.
• Peter Jackson has a brief cameo outside a movie theater early in the film as a bum which Juliet gives a kiss to.