The Hole frontwoman's legal team has issued a cease and desist order against cinemas slated to screen controversial new film Soaked in Bleach by director Benjamin Statler.

The movie centres around private investigator Tom Grant, hired by Love to find the Nirvana singer who went missing in March, 1994 after he left a substance abuse treatment facility in Los Angeles.

Grant recorded many of the conversations he had with Love up until Cobain was found dead the following month (Apr94), and many of the recordings, along with reenactments, make up the Soaked in Bleach film, which ultimately suggests the rock icon's death was not a suicide.

In legal documents obtained by Deadline.com, Love's attorneys state, "The film falsely presents a widely and repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory that accuses Ms. Cobain of orchestrating the death of her husband Kurt Cobain. A false accusation of criminal behaviour is defamatory... which entitles Ms. Cobain to both actual and presumed damages."

While an official complaint has yet to be filed in court, the producers of Soaked in Bleach have since responded to Love's order.

A statement reads, "We were disturbed to learn that Courtney Love's lawyers sent threatening letters to movie theatres all over the country... She obviously hoped to scare theater owners into dropping the film... (It is) a cowardly attack on the rights of free speech, free expression and free choice... The film examines the well documented facts surrounding the death of Kurt Cobain and it questions much of what the public has been told about those events."

While Love is hoping to stop Soaked in Bleach from screening, she fully supported director Brett Morgan's Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck documentary, which premiered in April (15).