The Reflecting Skin (1990) User Reviews

Innocence can be Hell.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 31 March 2016]

Jeremy Cooper plays Seth Dove, an impressionable and imaginative youngster living in the American prairies of the 1950s. He comes to believe that a mysterious local English widow named Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan) must be a vampire, based on what his father Luke (Duncan Fraser) has related to him. (The old man is a fan of pulp novels.) Therefore, Seth becomes alarmed when his older brother Cameron (Viggo Mortensen), a military veteran, falls in love with the widow.

"The Reflecting Skin" is a striking, unusual film, marking the filmmaking debut for Philip Ridley, a British playwright, author, and screenwriter. It's definitely not to all tastes, and certainly not for people expecting a traditional horror film. It depicts a stark world, seen through this childs' eyes, in which adults are often extremely messed up and children are victimized. Ridley's dialogue is literate and amusing, and the actors do seem to be enjoying themselves reciting these lines. The atmosphere is very impressive, with Ridley taking advantage of all these open spaces and endless fields of yellow. Dick Pope did the very efficient cinematography. Another memorable element is the music score by Nick Bicat. It's haunting and helps to draw you into this story that is sure to get under the skin of some of its viewers.

Fans of Mortensen should be aware that he doesn't show up for over 40 minutes, but he provides an engaging presence as a young man with little patience for his kid brother. Duncan is absolutely amazing and her character truly does seem to be living in some other universe. Sheila Moore chews the scenery as the shrewish Dove mother, Canadian character actor Fraser is fine as the father with a grim, sordid past, and young Cooper offers a believable performance.

Consistently unpredictable, "The Reflecting Skin" does have a fair bit going for it, and it's worth a look for buffs searching for something different and interesting.

Seven out of 10.

Beautiful cinematography

[gbill-74877 · 7/10 · 4 July 2020]

Really beautiful cinematography here, with the gorgeous billowing waves of amber wheat under azure skies that go on forever. The pacing is slow and the story is ambiguous, but I liked the themes of how the world is perceived as a child, and the inevitable time when the illusions of childhood are set aside. Who are the monsters in life, it seems to ask, the vampires of our horror stories, or people who abuse the powerless and wage war, despite this beautiful world all around them? It's ambitious and artistic, but the myriad subplots in its story didn't quite keep up for me.

Unknown Little Gem

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 20 July 2015]

In the 50's, the eight year-old Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) uses to play prank with his friends Kim (Evan Hall) and Eben (Codie Lucas Wilbee) in the rural area of the United States. Seth lives with his father Luke Dove (Duncan Fraser), who runs a gas station and a junkyard in the middle of nowhere, and with his dysfunctional mother Ruth Dove (Sheila Moore), who misses her son Cameron Dove (Viggo Mortensen) that fought in the Pacific. One day, Luke is reading a vampire pulp and Seth asks his father about vampires. When Seth has to apologize for a prank to his neighbor, the widow Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan), he believes she is a vampire. Eben is found murdered and Sheriff Ticker (Robert Koons) and his Deputy (David Bloom) blame Luke that has record of molestation. Luke does not bear the accusation and commits suicide while Seth believes Dolphin killed Eben. Cameron returns and soon he has a love affair with Dolphin while his little brother tries to discourage his brother to meet her. Kim is abducted by a group of youths in a black Cadillac and Seth witnesses the kidnapping. Soon Kim's body is found in a barn but Seth does not tell the Sheriff. When Dolphin asks for a ride to the driver of the Cadillac, Seth does not warn her. What will happen to Dolphin?

"The Reflecting Skin" is an unknown little gem by Philip Ridley, with one of the darkest and weirdest stories of cinema. The disturbing plot is very well constructed and uses the innocence of a wicked eight year- old boy and how he fantasizes his interpretation of reality. All the characters are non-likable and vicious, from the children and families to the Sheriff and his Deputy. The cinematography is also very beautiful in the rural landscape with bright colors. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Reflexo do Mal" ("The Reflection of Evil")

Note: On 25 July 2022, I saw this film again.

Another tack on a fascinating flick

[shlemmy · 27 April 2004]

I only read the most recent 12 reviews, but it seems you either really appreciate this film or you think it sucks. Apparently, some folks see art in the tragic and angst-ridden characters, and others are disgusted by their actions and the depressing imagery. Personally, my motives were not too sophisticated: I found it in the "horror" section at the video store and it looked pretty stylish and of course, Aragorn was in it, so I said what the heck. I thought the film, though disturbing, was indeed a fascinating and thought-provoking piece of cinematic art.

Anyway, I'm wondering if Philip Ridley was commenting on the narcissism, arrogance, violence, and corruption of U.S. culture. Not that others couldn't be accused of similar vices, but... I think the boy Seth and the other lead characters symbolize our national conscience. We run around blowing up frogs and tearing up peoples' property with no remorse, then create our own moral/spiritual sources to console us out of empty, dead things (like a stillborn child). We wallow in our domestic dysfunctions, while excelling at denial about them (like the nutty mother). We like a good witch hunt, accusing the depressed widow or the agonized former pedophile, while ignoring the obvious handsome suspects in the nice Caddy. We flit around wrapped in our flag thinking we're innocent, all the while nuking children in war only to focus on how their radiated skin looks like a mirror in which we can see our lovely reflections. But someone else gets the last laugh, since we're all self-destructing as a result of it all, and while at first Seth's screaming frenzy as the finale confused me, I realize now it's a fitting end to that interpretation.

Or something like that. It might just be about a bored rural kid with no conscience and a wild imagination whose failure to tell the truth ends up hurting everyone around him. Or about the price of tea in China. It's worth the view, though, if you like Gothic thrillers.

THE BIRTH OF A SERIAL KILLER

[darkkitteee · 7/10 · 29 August 2021]

I see in the other reviews how people want to put deep meanings into this film. For me it's pretty simple.

The men in the mysterious black car don't harm Seth because they see themselves in Seth. The kid is a sociopath and he is going to grow up to kill. The driver asks, "Want a ride, Seth Dove?" The kid doesn't say, "No." He says, "Not yet." They don't harm him because they know that one day he'll join them. They recognize that he's one of them.

This film is about the birth of a cold-blooded serial killer.

Sometimes Terrible Things Happen Quite Naturally

[StrictlyConfidential · 6/10 · 29 October 2020]

At times this cruel, bizarre, yet, striking film with its hypnotic cinematography of vast, golden wheat fields and lonely, bleak farmhouses was a literal work of art.

Yes. In many ways, "The Reflecting Skin" was what you would call a "horror" film, but, unlike so many horror films of today it, thankfully, relied more on stylized craft (which, I'm sure, isn't likely to satisfy the blood-lust of most horror movie fans) rather than on gut-churning spectacle.

For anyone who enjoys and appreciates "alternate" horror, "The Reflecting Skin" (most definitely) delivers its weird, grotesque, and grim-faced story with a unique flare as it skillfully weaves together the ragged threads of shattered childhood innocence, small-town eeriness, and Romantic/Gothic dread.

To be sure - "The Reflecting Skin" is far from being flawless, but, all the same, its fascinating imagery and disturbing unpleasantness is sure to leave a strong and lasting impression on the mind long after it's all over.

Best abuse film this abuse specialist has ever seen

[bwedin · 10/10 · 19 October 2009]

As a psychologist who has worked with child abuse victims and their families for over 30 years, and as a survivor of horrific child abuse myself, I would say that The Reflecting Skin is the most psychologically accurate depiction of child abuse that I've ever seen. And certainly the most uncompromising in terms of not romanticizing the victim. In The Reflecting Skin--SPOILER ALERT--the central victim is an 8-year-old farm boy, who is traumatized at one time or another by nearly everyone in his life. His mother, Ruth, rejects him and punishes him with water poisoning. His father, Luke, commits suicide in front of him. A depressed young widow, Dolphin Blue, terrorizes him with details of her husband's suicide and remnants of his corpse she has saved in a cigar box. Even his beloved older brother, Cameron, who himself is a victim of both his mother's incestuous advances and the US military's atomic testing program in the Pacific, is sometimes physically and emotionally abusive towards him—at one point showing him the photo of a Hiroshima baby with "reflecting skin," from which the film takes its names. But unlike the usual tearjerker Hollywood movie about child abuse, Seth is no more an "innocent angel" than is his brother or his father or his friends who get murdered. At the point we meet Seth running through a Van Gogh-colored field with a huge toad in his hands, he is already turning into the next generation of abuser—happily blowing up that toad with air the same way his mother blows him up with water. And he manages to retaliate against one of the adult abusers in his environment, Dolphin Blue, in the process. But he doesn't mean to kill her. Yet that is where his silence about the gang of serial killers he sees roaming the country roads in a black Caddy finally leads. That is the realization that finally shatters him. But what alternative to silence does he have? The best chance he has of stopping the killers is when Sheriff Ticker tries to force him into spilling his secrets. Yet the sheriff is so verbally abusive to Seth—even to the point of threatening to split Seth's head open to get the truth out of him—that Seth freezes and says nothing. Like most abused kids Seth believes that he's entirely on his own. And to judge from all the negative reviews of this film he has reason to feel that no one will understand him and know how to help him. Because of all the abuse he's already internalized at the point the film begins, he is no more lovable as a victim than the mummified fetus he tries to make his friend.

American Gothic

[PaulLondon · 10/10 · 19 October 2000]

British playwright, author and scriptwriter Phillip Ridley turned his hand to directing for this beautifully beguiling film about a child's view of a bewilderingly complex world. The protagonist-Seth-is confronted by the horrors of mortality when he meets the mysterious "vampire", Dolphin Blue, a lonely widow he encounters when he and his friends explode a frog in front of her. The film follows Seth through his deepening understanding of the fragility of existence.

A highly evocative and stylised tale of small town life and death set amidst swaying corn fields and clear blue skies, but, there is a foetus in the barn and death drives a black car through town... Not for all tastes, this is a poetic piece of Americana that will probably appeal to fans of David Lynch. Ridley's vision is not a cheery world view but one in which cruelty and fate stalk the innocent hand in hand. This is a beautiful and tragic piece of work and I just wish there would be a DVD release soon.

A contradiction

[thanos999 · 6/10 · 27 April 2013]

I read some of the reviews and as i had already provoked there were some very deep ,sophisticated and intellectual reviews.I am not writing often a review and i am not here pretending to be a simple guy who will explain you the movie.The movie is not simple and absolutely not very clear.I do like this kind of movies because i find something very authentic and personal to them although sometimes they are becoming confusing. This movie confused me a little and depressed me in a weird way.I heard the music in the beginning and i thought it was a perfect prelude for a meaning-full movie.Then there was the scenery,the view, i thought it was majestic.And then something happened, a weird contradiction but a very realistic one too.The life and behavior of the adults at that place changed the scenery into something depressing and dull.The children had to endure the problematic lives and the cruel manners of the adults and the only way out was action and exaggerating fantasy.The children, always waiting for something new something that could set them free.Locked in a social network founded on violence,problematic adults and war.Waiting and waiting surrounded by problems and death. I don't want to spoil the movie so i will stop right here.Well i don't know if you will agree with me so just see the movie and reach your own conclusions because i am sure that everyone will find something different to say for the meaning of the movie.

Mixed Feelings

[Ashman711711 · 4/10 · 2 January 2013]

I've seen many films and many movies(yes I believe there to be a difference. this particular piece has me scratching my head a bit.

I get the metaphor of how terrible the innocence of childhood can be, how not having the perspective of an adult can totally perplex the more serious tones.

The boy is meant to feel isolated, this is characterized by the open landscapes and wheat fields -both serene like some old Americana oil painting and starkly cold, lonely even. In this film the boy is bombarded with all kinds of different things. Death of children, allegations of homosexuality or child molestation(never clarified), his father's suicide,incest, the confusing ramblings of age and death from his widow neighbor(whom he believes to be a vampire).

I do get the message, it's literally told to us by Dolphin-she slaps of in the face with it verbally in case some have missed the point. This I feel doesn't make up for some of the more disturbing moments.(dead fetus anyone?) yes he is innocent as to what it is but damn, those were some disturbing scenes. The frog scene as well I get it they don't realize their folly, or about death so they laugh with glee at its demise.

The older brother character wasn't all that confusing and was easy to see he possibly was going through radiation poisoning due to his involvement in the pacific during his duty and how some of those symptoms could be misinterpreted by the boy as being the victim of vampirism.

Yes I understand the entire metaphor of the film, how the car of hooligans represent death, how he didn't feel like he needed a ride just yet. I do feel this film quite pretentious in its execution of said metaphor and was very close to imitating the boys final scene a a reaction to having viewed this over repeating, indulgent, pretentious piece of work.

A masterpiece from the 90's

[Bogey Man · 10/10 · 15 October 2002]

British author and writer Philip Ridley has done very little in the field of cinema, but what there is, is more than interesting and great, especially in the case of this debut of his, Reflecting Skin (1990). The film stars Jeremy Cooper as a some 10 year old boy named Seth Dove, who lives in the rural areas of America in the 1950's, when the WWII is still very freshly in minds. Seth has friends whom he plays with like boys normally do, but it seems like they are always very cold and wicked towards each other, and that something isn't quite right. Seth's father and mother are also more than ominous and weird. Soon Seth's older brother arrives in home from WWII in which he served during the bombing of Japan. Brother Cameron is played by Viggo Mortensen, and first he and Seth seem to be very close with each other, but not for long. Also, a weird lady lives near Seth's house and the lady - despite being very attractive - is also very bizarre and threatening, and almost like a vampire in a fairy tales, which Seth's father happens to read all the time. There's no need to tell more about the plot, you've got it by this point that this film isn't going to be any optimistic and positive pack of 90 minutes entertainment. This is nearly as disturbing as possible, and has characters and settings which would make (and hopefully have made or will make) David Lynch give a huge hug to Philip.

Reflecting Skin is the kind of film a director manages to do perhaps just once during his career. It tries to reach the top which is so high, it is almost impossible to succeed or at least succeed more than once in subsequent films. Reflecting Skin - I have really come to this conclusion - really succeeds and how fantastically it does! I knew this film will be a tough and challenging one, but it was more, when I finally FINALLY managed to find it and watch it.

The film has absolutely zero likable characters or characters who can be described as good or good willing. They are all bad, others more and others less. Others may have had an opportunity not to become that way due to their young age, while others are so corrupted and rotten, they should have been 'saved' when they were still vulnerable kids themselves. This film shows the kind of things about childhood and growing up many parents wouldn't probably even dare to thing about, but still I think this should be seen by every parent who is going to have or already has had a child who is waiting to be raised as a decent and undisturbed human being.

But what about Seth, since he is also very mean and selfish at many points? I think it is among the points and things which make this film so powerful and merciless, because there's absolutely no hope for the characters of the film, they're gone/destroyed for ever and others just can't take it and go completely insane and self destuctive. But there's hope for us, the viewers, who accept the film's challenging subjects and things from our everyday life. This film teaches, shows, enlightens and horrifies us as powerfully as it makes us wonder the visual beauty and settings of the film.

The visual eye of Ridley's is great and wonderful, and Reflecting Skin proved it for the first time in big screen. The collaboration of Ridley and cinematographer Dick Pope (The Way of the Gun) is among the greatest I've seen for long time. The fields and rural settings are so gorgeous and the colors in which they bathe really fill this film with cinematic magic, which is also present in Ridley's The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995) which was photographed by John de Borman. Darkly Noon fails a little as it hasn't got characters as deep as they should, but visually Reflecting Skin and Darkly Noon are equally brilliant and stunning. Due to the much stronger and disturbing emotional content and elements of Reflecting Skin, the visual beauty naturally gives a huge contrast to the experience, and also a goal which should be reached by the film's characters, unless it wasn't already too late for them.

Music is very important element in Cinema, and Reflecting Skin shines on that level, too. Nick Bicât composed both Darkly Noon and Reflecting Skin, but the soundtrack in the latter really stayed into my mind after the first viewing. It is very close to Clint Mansell's unique power in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream's (2000) soundtrack. Aronofsky's film would not be as powerful without Mansell's heart stopping and breaking music, and that is also the case with Reflecting Skin. The final image and last 2 minutes of Reflecting Skin would be extremely intense without the music, but now they are perfectly harrowing and powerful, thanks to the talent and gift of Nick Bicât.

These ultra powerful and harrowing films usually have at least one element in common: the final scene, sequence or image, which usually takes the viewer as far as possible and truly tests the tolerance, without never being gratuitous or exploitative. Reflecting Skin's ending is heart breakingly harrowing, mostly because of the fact that Seth has never given clues of something like this during the film, and thus it comes pretty unexpectedly, but still very understandably, as it all tightens the film's message and theme for the last time. The ending is very powerful and so is the artist behind this film.

Ridley has also written the screenplay for Peter Medak's The Krays on same year (1990), but that film has different themes and is not as important and personal as Reflecting Skin, but still The Krays is recommended for those interested in Ridley. It is very sad and weird that Ridley hasn't done anything in the field of cinema for many years (as far as I know, Darkly Noon is so far the last film he has done), because it would be so great if there was some future projects and cinema plans for the director. I really hope Ridley would continue making films one day, because world needs his kind of film makers.

I can't say anything which would give Reflecting Skin less than 10/10 because it lacks all the things - mostly little too shallow characters - which make The Krays and Darkly Noon a little less effective and striking works. Reflecting Skin is a true masterpiece but only for those who can accept and stand extremely depressing and harrowing images, situations, human destinies and over all atmosphere, and most importantly, honest and uncompromising cinema.

Dark Shadows Reflecting In The Dazzling Daylight

[xyzkozak · 6/10 · 18 December 2014]

The Reflecting Skin is a bizarre and equally disturbing movie-experience combining beautiful cinematography with a really weird and screwed-up story that's viewed from an abused child's peculiar slant on things.

Though not meant for all tastes, The Reflecting Skin is one of those films that's just too odd to be outrightly dismissed.

If you enjoy films that are offbeat, surreal and nightmarish in nature, then here's one whose story and imagery creates a very dark and haunting atmosphere set against the dazzling brightness of rural Idaho in the 1950s.

The innocence of a 9 year-old boy named Seth is stripped away as he closely observes the strange and macabre characters that are around him.

Life for this troubled, young boy living on the outskirts of a small, isolated farm-town is magnified beyond reality into a weird, quasi-fantasy that directly challenges the viewer's idealized notions about the naivety of childhood and the rationality of a child's thinking.

A lot of people will find at this film's conclusion that just too many questions were deliberately left unanswered. This is sure to leave many viewers (as it did with myself) both annoyed and dissatisfied.

But, yet, even though there were a number of places where The Reflecting Skin literally fell flat on its face out of sheer absurdity, the unique strangeness if its overall story is still well-worth a view.

Unrealistic

[lwalt-75058 · 1/10 · 27 February 2022]

No child who is best pal of their dad can watch those events unfold and be non-chalant.

The older brother vacillates between emotional abuse and brotherly concern without apparent mental instability.

The child doesn't report the killer when he becomes directly aware of identity. There is no reason for this.

The kids are destructive without concern for their punishment (bedroom) even though they hid when they played the frog prank.

The woman says she has a ride and then accepts a ride from strangers.

People are not born emotionally distant, then show ability to care, then act as a distant observer without trauma which the boy didn't have.

Who planted the fishy baby?

Hard to respond ...

[sober_gaijin · 30 May 2004]

This film is certainly unique. It creates a dark and haunting atmosphere against a rural town in the 1950s. It keeps sneaking so many weird and unsettling images into its narrative that by the time the really weird stuff starts you're totally accepting of it. The film opens with a group of cruel boys inflating a hapless frog and then exploding it in the face of a woman, spattering her with blood and frog entrails. That sets the tone.

I was not in the right frame of mind for this. But I cannot utterly dismiss it either. I was taken by the filmmaker's vision, and I had to appreciate his imaginative approach to narrative. But I was expecting the violence to be a little more stylized--actually, it's quite bleak and nihilistic. This film belongs in a pantheon of indigestible films like SALO, brilliant movies to be sure, but hardly the kind of stories to tuck you in at night. This is a compliment, by the way, as SALO is one of my favorite films.

HAVE YOU BEEN EXPLODING FROGS AGAIN?

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 17 April 2018]

I admit. I missed it. There is clearly some sort of metaphor and symbolism at work. The semi-surreal background kept he thinking about what is really happening. Seth Dove(Jeremy Cooper)is a young boy with a wild imagination growing up on a farm in Idaho. He believes the widow (Lindsay Duncan) next door is a vampire. His name oozes with symbolism, but I missed it. I suppose the symbolism involves the title, "The Reflecting Skin" which is mentioned late in the film.

His brother Cameron (Viggo Mortensen) shows up from watching a-bomb tests and falls in love with the woman whose dead husband's name was Adam. More of the metaphor? Adam's first wife was supposed to have been a succubus according to lore. There is diverse religious discussions among the kids involving angels. The black Cadillac??? Was that the grim reaper?

At times I felt I was going to watch another "Sailor Who Fell From Grace From the Sea" combined with "Summer of '42" combined with "Pan's Labyrinth". Sheila Moore, as the mom reminded me of the moms I grew up with before Valium. The movie had been fascinated and interested the whole time. If I had caught the symbolism, I would have perhaps gone 5 stars.

Parental Guide: No f-bombs, adult themes. Male rear nudity (Viggo) and B&W photo. I obtained this film on a horror film 8-pack at Walmart, although this is not really a horror film.

So what does he think the guys in the car are doing?

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 30 July 2015]

It's 1950s in rural America. 8 year old Seth Dove plays a prank exploding a frog on his reclusive English neighbor Dolphin Blue. His mother forces him to go apologize to her. His father tells him about vampires. Dolphin tells the boy that she is 200 years old. His friend Eben disappears. He warns his other friend Kim and both break into Dolphin's home. He finds Eben's body in the well. His father was once caught by Sheriff Ticker kissing a 17 year old boy. After being threatened with an investigation, his father sets himself on fire. His older brother Cameron (Viggo Mortensen) returns from the military. Cameron starts to get involved with Dolphin despite Seth warning him that she's a vampire. There is also a group of ominous men in a black Cadillac.

I see this more as a surreal horror. It's not necessarily related to anything close to reality. I like the black color scheme and the overtly unreal style. I like Seth's warped understanding of vampires and angels. The big thing that doesn't make sense is his understanding of the men in the car. I don't know why he doesn't tell the sheriff about them. I don't know what he means when he says "No, not yet". Does he want to take a ride in the future? I just don't know what the men in the black car mean to him. It doesn't seem like it's well thought out. Some of the dialog can also be written better. The movie has an interesting look but the writing can be better.

The beauty of mournful darkness,

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 9/10 · 10 January 2010]

"The Reflecting Skin" is among the most beautiful and elegiac movies I have ever seen. It's dark and depressing film which takes place during 50's. Philip Ridley's full-length debut features many memorable moments for example frog exploding in a torrent of blood and guts,a couple of chirping ladies walking close to Seth and carrying a dead seagull,a gruesome suicide that ended with a burning gas station and the discovery of the mummified baby in the barn. The water plays the major theme in "The Reflecting Skin". The film is extremely poetic with its bleak subject matter of loneliness and mourn. The cinematography of Dick Pope is breathtaking with some moody shots of the fields,rolling hills and big skies. Dreamy and strangely hypnotic "The Reflecting Skin" is an unforgettable trip into sadness and melancholy.9 out of 10.

The Reflecting Skin

[ryan-10075 · 7/10 · 23 May 2018]

After a young boy named Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) is caught with his two buddies causing havoc he must go and meet his odd widow neighbour Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan) to apologize. Quickly Seth believes she is a vampire. Seth's brother Cameron (Viggo Mortensen) returns home from war, but he grows to have an interest in Dolphin, which Seth does not wish to happen. Sheriff Ticker has the look of a villain straight out of an old Sean Connery James Bond movie (see DR. NO & THUNDERBALL). I think it is wonderfully filmed with a great score by Nick Bicat. I think newcomer Jeremy Cooper does a terrific job playing the 8-year old Seth. In fact acting all around is top notch. Interesting that most scenes are played out in sunlight rather than the usual horror staple of darkness. In turn though, did not find scary at all and may work better through the lens of a drama rather than horror.

One of the most beautifully filmed pieces ever!

[deacon_blues-1 · 10/10 · 7 October 2005]

Heartrendingly beautiful scenes of too-golden wheat fields. Also shattering in its disturbing imagery and subject matter. Solidly acted by all concerned. This film really needs to be on DVD! Hey! Get it done already! It's a crime to have to watch this on inferior VHS media. The world of childhood encounters the horrifying adult world in a series of inexplicable tragedies and horrendous crimes. Emotionally charged for anyone who remembers what it's like to be a child peering into the Pandora's's box of mature reality with all it's terrifying dangers, from which children are normally sheltered. Here the worlds collide with devastating impact; and yet, as the tag line states, it's all quite natural and must be taken in stride in order to encounter life in a meaningful way. Yes, children, life is full of lunacy, failure, cruelty, persecution, suicides, murderers, death and decay. Welcome to our life. The ultimate answer to the Simple Plan song, the fact is that, Yes we all know what it's like, because we all have to live it; your experience is not some uniquely tragic exception, it's just the universal, horrifying reality. Thank God that most of the time we don't have to face it, and life is good. But, to take a poignant line from Grand Canyon, "If you live long enough, some awful bad (stuff's) gonna happen to ya."

Dirt sticks to the skin gradually

[AngryOcean · 6/10 · 7 October 2021]

I would like to start with the color gamut of the film. Dirty, muted colors: yellow, green, black. The first scene, the scene with the inflating of the frog, like the first brush stroke on the canvas and this stroke is a great feeling of joy, anticipation of adventure, but contaminated with pity for the frog, which three boys inflated and blew up in front of a woman whose clothes and skin were stained with blood because of it. This is the third dirt. A third layer of dirt, if you like. Dirt sticks to the skin gradually. At the end of this scene, sympathy for the woman is visible on the face of the main boy, but he rather quickly stops looking at the woman and runs away. The boy seems to be throwing something bright from his face and again covered with dirt of a small, insignificant death, but growing throughout the film.

The people of the little protagonist's family look emaciated and drained. The mother is unhappy with life, she hates reality, she expects the eldest son to return from the war. Looking forward to the return of a better life. The father reads a book about vampires and asks his son to bring water. Two times, one dialogue template. Thirst for water, thirst for blood. The frames of this family reminded me of Grant Wood's American Gothic. But the picture is order, life; frames are chaos, death. A clean black car rushes into the incessant alarm of reality, like Langorier. Why is it so clean when it was driving along a dusty road among yellow, thorny fields of rye? And here we have before us the first victim of the growing death - a man, the father of a family. Longing for the dead seems artificial and therefore frightening. The protagonist sees some kind of game in this: the vampire killed his father. There are a lot of animal bones, machine bones in the frame. And death, again. It seems that something is lurking there, in the corner of the frame, but you cannot see, you cannot notice. Two identical women with a dead seagull in their hands are teasing - come on, you can look behind the frame, you can see! But they slip away just like the mystery.

Returning to the colors, they become highly saturated and evoke some feeling of horror of noon. The eldest son returns home, but the mother's life is not getting better. The eldest son glitters among the dirt and dust of the fields. He falls in love with a woman who lives next door. But there is anxiety and fear all around. We hear him describe the war he saw. Bright, bright light. Probably a nuclear bomb. The light in the frame is like the light of the bomb. Is this man dying too? We can only speculate. But we know for sure that Langorier came for a new death. The light of the sun dazzles, the yell of pain is deafening, and the last frame plunges us into the blackness of despair and incessant grief.

Fails to shock, disturb or reveal...

[enicholson · 3/10 · 3 October 2002]

If you watch THE REFLECTING SKIN closely (or even not so closely) you'll notice that it sucks. This is a film that tosses in bits and pieces of imagery and motifs that might have come from American/Southern gothic sources like Sam Shepard, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, David Lynch, Anne Rice and Tobe Hooper (and others) -- but it fails to make its world seem the least bit vital or interesting. All we are left with are pseudo-disturbing characters and bits of imagery that don't want to fit together: the cliched townie puritans and religious fanatics, a dead baby, an English neighbor nearby who may or may not be a vampire, an hysterical mother with a husband who is a repressed homosexual, and most strangely there is a group of greaser murderer/pedophiles who drive around almost completely unnoticed in a shiny black Plymouth. This narrative is all led by a 9 year old protagonist boy named Seth Dove (and his stock set of small town friends) and his older brother Cam (played by Viggo Mortensen) who just returned from fighting the Japanese.

Not much really happens in this film except that there is a lot of yelling and menacing looks. Seth runs back and forth between the different characters and locales as though he were attending exhibits at the Yakpanatwa (sorry about the spelling) Country Fair for Southern Gothic Cliches. Occasionally he or one of his friends runs around draped in an American flag. Hmmm -- this must have some sort of deep meaning. But who cares about subtext when text is so boring and phony?

The film has some nice cinematography, which is what makes it tolerable to watch. But as it goes on you begin to realize that this over-emphasis on visual beauty is a kind of device to distract the audience from possibly realizing that there is nothing interesting going on.

Disparate stock characters and cliches from American gothic horror and southern gothic sources could be interesting if it all these elements were supported by a unique screenplay and guided by a gifted director (go rent Jim Jarmusch's DEAD MAN, which is not a great film, but a much better one that takes a similar approach to its material). But this writer/director unfortunately has little such skill in either department. The acting is mostly over the top (though many of the actors are good) and there is little suspense or mystery about the visual style and directorial approach. By trying to bombard the audience with style (especially the excruciatingly over the top orchestral and choral score) the director proves to have hardly any style at all.

One gets the sense that this director is not an American -- but for some reason felt compelled to try to say something deep and meaningful about America. One gets the sense that he doesn't really know these characters at all -- or the land they live on. Yet perhaps as a kid this director feverishly and fetishistically read and viewed materials about death, perversity and horror in the Midwest and Great Plains - and could only come up with a kind of Wisconsin Death Trip for Basic Cable. Nice try. Better luck next time.

Great Film

[bengmason · 10/10 · 11 July 2005]

The Reflecting Skin is, by far, the best film I have ever seen.

The film is about a young 8-year-old boy named Seth Dove, who leads a fairly normal childhood in the prairie farmlands of the 1950's.

When a friend is murdered and his father, who has a secret past, is accused of the crime Seth's world is suddenly turned upside down. However, Seth becomes fixated with a reclusive widow named Dolphin Blue and, convinced she is a vampire, believes she is responsible for the death of his friends. He also believes she is out to kill his older brother Cameron and will stop at nothing to save him.

This film deals with dark psychological territory that some viewers may find disturbing. However, I do recommend you watch this film as Philip Ridley has directed a film that shows how a child's imagination can be extremely overactive but also, it shows just how cruel the adult world can be.

The film is also shot in a very beautiful way. It oozes atmosphere and the use of colour in the film is fantastic. Ridley combines, successfully, the colours Blue, Yellow, Black, Grey and white and it just brings the film to life.

I do recommend this film to anyone, as i have done to my friends who have loved it. So, rent it out. Sit down. Enjoy.

All style and no substance

[The_Void · 6/10 · 14 July 2009]

The Reflecting Skin appears to be a film that is dividing opinions among all those who have seen it. I did really want to like it; but unfortunately the fact is that the film just isn't nearly as good as it could have been, and the result is a stylish mess with a handful of good ideas. The main problem with the film from my point of view is the fact that there's no actual story to it; there's some flow to the plot, but it doesn't seem to have any meaning, which means that the film ends up with only the imagery to lend it any substance; and this isn't enough to keep the film interesting. The film takes place in the middle of a desert sometime during the 1950's. The main character is Seth Dove; a young kid that gets his kicks by exploding frogs and vandalising people's homes. His family harbours some dark secrets, which come to the fore when a neighbourhood kid is killed. Meanwhile, his father's stories of vampires have lead the kid to believe that a woman that lives nearby may be one of the undead.

The film is often labelled as a part of the horror genre; but aside from some vague notions of vampirism, the film really isn't horror. I suppose it would be best described as fantasy. The main problem with the film is undoubtedly the poor script, which features terrible dialogue and doesn't properly address many issues; for example, the kid coming to believe that his neighbour is a vampire emerges after a thirty second dialogue between father and son about a vampire book! The film is not helped by the lead character; Seth Dove is not easy to like at all - his actions and mannerisms made me hate the kid. The acting is not particularly good either; lead actor Jeremy Cooper unsurprisingly had only a couple of film credits after this one, while Viggo Mortensen appears before he would go on to mature into a good performer. I do have to admit that the film is not a complete dead-loss; in terms of substance it is, but at least the style of the film is good; director Phillip Radley makes good use of the locations and there are also a handful of good ideas blended into the film. Overall, however, I can't recommend this film.

The Reflecting Skin

[henry8-3 · 3/10 · 12 January 2021]

Seth is an 8 year old living in run down post war Idaho farmland where he comes to believe that a local woman (Duncan) is a vampire and responsible for a number of boys that have gone missing. His anxiety grows when his beloved older brother (Mortensen) returns from post nuclear holocaust torn Japan and is attracted to the woman.

Full of imagery and symbolism and hence much admired by many, this is still very hard to swallow. This is mainly because the boy can see quite clearly what is really going on, but chooses to ignore this and that everyone in the film is completely nuts bar none. I can admire many things about this film, but ultimately I couldn't persuade myself that it wasn't just pretentious twaddle. Sorry.