- Juliet Hulme: [consoling her new friend] All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases. It's all frightfully romantic.
- Pauline Parker: [narration] The next time I write in this diary, Mother will be dead. How odd... yet how pleasing.
- Pauline Parker: She is most unreasonable. Why could not mother die? Dozens of people are dying all the time, thousands, so why not mother? And father too.
- Pauline Parker: [voiceover, from her diary] We have decided how sad it is for other people that they cannot appreciate our genius.
- Pauline Parker: Oh, I wish James Mason would do a religious picture! He'd be perfect as Jesus!
- Juliet Hulme: Daddy says the Bible's a load of bunkum!
- Pauline Parker: But we're all going to heaven?
- Juliet Hulme: I'M not! I'M going to The Fourth World... it's sort of like heaven. Only better, because there aren't any Christians!
- Pauline Parker: [narrating] We realised why Deborah and I have such extraordinary telepathy and why people treat us and look at us the way they do. It is because we are MAD. We are both stark raving MAD!
- [Pauline is spending the Easter holiday with the Hulmes. Hilda Hulme, brushing Pauline's hair into an attractive shag, listens while Juliet describes more of the story that they've been devising]
- Juliet Hulme: Mummy, Paul and I have decided that Charles and Deborah are going to have a baby, an heir to the throne of Borovnia.
- Hilda Hulme: What a splendid idea.
- [She grins, while Pauline is ecstatic with the attention being lavished upon her]
- Juliet Hulme: We're calling him Diello.
- Hilda Hulme: Well, that's a good, dramatic name.
- Juliet Hulme: Paul thought it up.
- Hilda Hulme: Aren't you clever?
- [Pauline beams while Mrs. Hulme fluffs up her hair]
- Hilda Hulme: There: all done.
- [Pauline jumps up and takes Juliet's hand]
- Hilda Hulme: Oh, look at you two. A couple of Borovnian princesses, if ever I saw them! My daughter... and my foster-daughter.
- Pauline Parker: [narrating] This notion is not a new one but this time it is a definite plan which we intend to carry out. We have worked it out carefully and are both thrilled by the idea. Naturally we feel a trifle nervous, but the pleasure of anticipation is great.
- John: I love you so much Paul. Do you love me as much as I love you?
- Pauline Parker: Of course I do, Nicolas.
- John: My name is John.
- Pauline Parker: Oh, but I like Nicolas so much better!
- Juliet Hulme: [speaking too brightly of the murder of Honorah Parker Rieper] I think she knows what's going to happen. She doesn't appear to bear us any grudge.
- Juliet Hulme: Affairs are much more exciting than marriages.
- [Then, with disgust]
- Juliet Hulme: As Mummy can testify.
- [shortly before the murder]
- Juliet Hulme: [admiring the view that includes the path down the hill, where the murder occurred] Isn't it beautiful?
- Pauline Parker: Let's go for a walk down here. Come on, Mummy!
- Honorah Parker Rieper: Oh! No, I'd like a cup of tea, first. Come on!
- [the girls reluctantly follow her into the tea-house]
- Pauline Parker: Mother gave me a fearful lecture along the usual strain. I rang Deborah immediately, as I had to tell someone sympathetic how I loathed Mother.
- John: [Chasing Pauline on his bike] Yvonne! Stop! I still love you! Yvonne!
- [Juliet and Pauline look out the train window at him, and grin to each other]
- Pauline Parker: [voiceover] Compared with these two, every man is a fool. The world is most honoured that they should deign to rule, and I worship the power of these lovely two, with that adoring love known to so few.
- [During a night rain-storm, Dr. Hulme knocks on the Riepers' door]
- Dr. Henry Hulme: Mrs. Rieper, may I come in?
- Honorah Parker Rieper: Yes, of course.
- Dr. Henry Hulme: Thank you.
- [They sit in the parlor]
- Dr. Henry Hulme: Your daughter's an imaginative and spirited girl.
- Honorah Parker Rieper: Look, if she's spending too much time at your house, you only need to say. All those nights that she spends over, she assured us that you don't mind.
- Dr. Henry Hulme: It, it's rather more complicated than that. Since Mrs. Hulme and I have returned home, Juliet has been behaving in a rather disturbed manner... surliness, general irritability - most uncharacteristic.
- Herbert Rieper: Sure I can't tempt you to a nice sherry, Dr. Hulme?
- Dr. Henry Hulme: No, thank you. The thing is...
- Honorah Parker Rieper: Yvonne hasn't been herself, either. Locking herself away in her room, endlessly writing.
- Dr. Henry Hulme: My wife and I feel the friendship is... unhealthy.
- Herbert Rieper: No arguments there, Dr. Hulme! All that time inside working on those novels of theirs. They don't get fresh air or exercise!
- Honorah Parker Rieper: I'm not sure what you mean, Dr. Hulme.
- Dr. Henry Hulme: Your daughter appears to have formed a rather unwholesome attachment to Juliet.
- Honorah Parker Rieper: What's she done?
- Dr. Henry Hulme: She hasn't done anything. It's the intensity of the friendship that concerns me. I think we should avert trouble before it starts.
- Pauline Parker: I felt thoroughly depressed and even quite seriously considered committing suicide. Life seemed so much not worth the living and death such an easy way out.
- Honorah Parker Rieper: Love, you can still write to each other.
- Pauline Parker: Anger against Mother boiled up inside me, as it is she who is one of the main obstacles in my path. Suddenly a means of ridding myself of this obstacle occurred to me. If she were to die...
- Juliet Hulme: Daddy says the Bible is a load of bunkum.
- Pauline Parker: But we're all going to Heaven.
- Juliet Hulme: I'm not. I'm going to the Fourth World. It's sort of like Heaven, only better, because there aren't any Christians. It's an absolute paradise of music, art and pure enjoyment.
- Doctor Bennett: [of Pauline's homosexuality] Chances are she'll grow out of it. If not... well, medical science is progressing in leaps and bounds. There could be a breakthrough at any time!
- Juliet Hulme: [Juliet has just arrived at her new school. For French class she has taken the name Antoinette] Excuse me, Miss Waller, you've made a mistake. "Je doutais qu'il vienne" is in fact the spoken subjunctive.
- Miss Waller: It is customary to stand when addressing a teacher,
- [pause]
- Miss Waller: Antoinette.
- Juliet Hulme: [stands] You should have written "vînt".
- Miss Waller: I must have copied it incorrectly from my notes.
- Juliet Hulme: [stands] You don't need to apologise, Miss Waller. I found it frightfully difficult myself until I got the hang of it.
- [first lines]
- [Director Peter Jackson opens with the scene that should, logically, end the film: that is, the moments immediately following the murder. The girls Juliet and Pauline run screaming up the hill-path to the tea-house, sobbing and covered in blood. The scene is intercut with b&w visions of the two running across a ship deck to meet Dr. and Mrs. Hulme, whom they both refer to as their mother, as the first three exclamations of "Mummy!" demonstrate]
- Juliet Hulme: Mummy!
- Pauline Parker: Mummy!
- Juliet Hulme: Mummmmy!
- [the scene changes from the ship to the hilltop tea-house. The girls are screaming hysterically as the tea-house woman runs out to see what the noise is all about]
- Pauline Parker: It's Mummy! She's terribly hurt!
- Juliet Hulme: Please! Help us!
- Pauline Parker: [narrative from the diary] My new year's resolution is a far more selfish one than last year. It is to make my motto, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow, you may be dead
- [voiceover; narrated from her diary]
- Pauline Parker: There are living among two dutiful daughters - of a man who possesses two beautiful daughters - you cannot know nor yet try to guess, the sweet soothingness of their caress. The outstanding genius of this pair is understood by few, they are so rare.
- Juliet Hulme: Bloody Bill's sniffing around Mummy something chronic!
- Pauline Parker: I thought he was supposed to be terribly ill.
- Juliet Hulme: That's what we were led to believe.
- [last lines]
- [the last lines show scenes of the murder intercut with b&w shots of Juliet being taken away by her parents on the ship. Pauline and Juliet are sobbing and screaming for each other; and the girls scream as they beat Honorah Parker to death]
- Juliet Hulme: Gina!
- [sobs as she reaches a hand over the ship railing]
- Pauline Parker: Juliet, don't leave! I'm coming! Don't go! You can't! Oh, no!
- [as the girls cry and reach helplessly toward each other, Juliet's parents come and stand on either side of her, trying to comfort her]
- Juliet Hulme: I'm sorry...
- [Pauline screams, and the b&w scene fades into the murder scene]
- Pauline Parker: No!
- [That last bloody shot fades into the credits]
- [Pauline and Juliet are planning to run away to Hollywood and meet their favorite actors, such as James Mason and Mario Lanza]
- Juliet Hulme: As soon as those bods in Hollywood cop a look at us, they'll be falling over themselves!
- Pauline Parker: Oh, it'll be amazing to meet James in person. I just know we'll hit it off brilliantly. And Guy Rolfe. And Mel Ferrer.
- Juliet Hulme: And Mario!
- Pauline Parker: Oh, I can't wait to do the love scenes.
- Juliet Hulme: Ooh.
- Pauline Parker: But what if they're married?
- Juliet Hulme: Oh, don't worry about that. We'll simply 'moider' any odd wives that get in our way!
- Juliet Hulme: Can I have another look?
- [Pauline pulls down her legging, Juliet gasps]
- Juliet Hulme: That so impressive. Can I touch it?
- [Pauline nods and Juliet touches her scar]
- Juliet Hulme: Oooh! I've got scars. The're on my lungs. I spent months in bed during the war, ravaged by respiratory illness.