What a treat to watch this early Peter Jackson film on the big screen.

I suspect I saw it when it came out in 1994 or not much afterwards as it feels like a long time since I’ve seen it. I don’t have strong memories of it, just of liking it, but in the opening scene when Melanie Lynskey’s Pauline, covered in blood, screeches in a New Zealand accent “Mummy’s been terribly hurt” it all came flooding back.

Starting off with retro news footage of how wonderful Christchurch is, we are given a heads up that we will be hearing verbatim diary entries from Pauline Parker about her friendship with Juliet Hulme. There was a ripple of pleasure when the opening titles declared ‘introducing Kate Winslet as Juliet and introducing Melanie Lynskey as Pauline.’

Lynskey plays a sullen, dowdy Pauline whereas Winslet commands the screen as soon as she appears as the cultured, snobby Juliet, a new girl at their posh school. Thrown together as misfits, they bond over their love of creative imagination and romantic stories, even though their class backgrounds are very different. Pauline is overawed when she visits Juliet’s sprawling mansion, caught up with Juliet dressed as a princess running through the grounds battling her younger brother (who interestingly seems to disappear from the film about half way through).

At first the friendship is just annoying to their teachers as often they will not be doing the work they’re supposed to be doing, but soon their intense closeness starts to worry Juliet’s religious father (Clive Merrison) and the various parents try to intervene. Although Pauline never writes of her friendship as a romantic love, it is definitely queer coded, almost as if the two girls in there naivety didn’t even realise that loving another woman might be a thing.

Jackson does a good job at intertwining their romantic fantasies with hyper coloured landscapes and claymation. It’s a little dated in its technique but has held up pretty well over 30 years and is a great way to get inside the heads of the teenagers. Jackson is able to show us an empathetic portrait of two girls who went on to perpetrate a terrible act. The moment in the tea rooms where Pauline insists her mother Honora (Sarah Peirse) has the last scone is heartbreaking.

The cinematography and acting is often times turned up to 11 but that is in keeping with the slightly nightmarish, slightly cartoon-like feel of the art direction – a disapproving parent has an edge of monstrosity, whereas their shared world is one of giant butterflies and valiant knights.

The story ends where it starts, with the girls covered in blood and we get a peremptory title card that lets us know their fates. I have to say I was shocked at the brevity of the consequences for them both.