Peter Jackson’s best, bar none. Beautifully surreal yet frighteningly realistic and backed by very believable performances (agreed, Kate Winslet knocks one outta the park here). Plus, I’ll never forget how fast my heart was beating the first time that I watched helplessly as the girls carried out their methodical plan; that chilling scene alone was riveting beyond belief, but the entire film (in particular the slow burn of events leading up to the disturbing finale) is just perfect. Extreme hallucinatory sociopathy is as scary as it sounds. It’s a shame that the majority of film-goers who know Mr. Jackson for those LOTR snoozefests aren’t even aware of the director’s splatterrific and far more interesting film roots. Sure, I’m generalizing a bit, but I have yet to meet an LOTR fan (at least offline) who’s even heard of Heavenly Creatures or Dead Alive for that matter, let alone experienced them. But then again, I’m not that big on medieval fantasy epics myself, so I guess it’s all a matter of taste.