The Reflecting Skin

''The Reflecting Skin'' is a 1990 British-Canadian dramatic horror film written and directed by Philip Ridley and starring Jeremy Cooper, Viggo Mortensen and Lindsay Duncan. Described by its director as a "mythical interpretation" of childhood, the film weaves elements of vampirism, surrealism, black comedy, symbolism, and religious zealotry throughout its narrative about the perceptions and fantasies of an impressionable young boy in 1950s America. ''The Reflecting Skin'' places the majority of its action outdoors around the dilapidated farms and in the wheat fields of Idaho shot in idyllic sunlight which belies the dark secrets of the characters and plot.

Plot

Eight-year-old Seth Dove lives in an isolated American prairie community in the 1950s. The film opens with Seth and his friends, Eben and Kim, playing with a frog Seth has found in the fields. The boys inflate the frog by inserting a reed up its anus and leave it by the side of the road. When a local English widow, Dolphin Blue, stops to inspect it, Seth shoots the inflated frog with a slingshot, causing it to explode over Dolphin.

Seth retreats back to the small gas station where he lives with his overworked, harsh, longing mother Ruth and shy, closeted, detached father Luke. Seth's older brother, Cameron, is away on military service in the Pacific (Ruth refers to them as "the pretty islands"). Seth serves gas to a mysterious group of young men driving a black Cadillac, who promise to see him again soon and drive off.

Seth is sent to Dolphin's house to apologise for the frog prank. Dolphin is haunted by the memory of her dead husband, who hanged himself for unknown reasons a week after their wedding. Surrounded by artifacts from her husband's family's whaling past, Seth takes some of her self-pitying remarks (she claims to be "two hundred years old") literally. After having just learned about vampires from his father, Seth begins to believe that Dolphin must be a vampire.

After Eben goes missing, Seth and Kim go to Dolphin's house to investigate, because Seth believes she is responsible for Eben's disappearance. They go up to Dolphin's bedroom and demolish her belongings. They later hear Dolphin downstairs. The boys proceed to spy on her as she sits on a chair, moaning and touching herself. After getting caught, the boys scream and run outside. Seth sees the same black Cadillac from before, after which he runs home and later finds Eben's dead body floating in the water cistern. The local authorities believe that Seth's father, Luke, is responsible, because of a homosexual indiscretion years previously; believing himself to be doomed, Luke douses himself with gasoline and incinerates himself.

Cameron returns home to look after his brother Seth, as Ruth has become shell-shocked following her husband's self-immolation. Whilst visiting his grave, Cameron meets Dolphin, and romance sparks between the two, much to Seth's horror. In a nearby barn, Seth and Kim discover an ossified dead fetus, which Seth takes home with him, believing it to be Eben incarnate as a fallen angel. Cameron shows Seth a photograph of a baby dying from radiation poisoning, which both fascinates and disturbs Seth. The next day, Seth follows Cameron to Dolphin's house, where he observes Cameron emotionally confessing to Dolphin his culpability in atomic bomb experiments. Cameron and Dolphin begin to make love; running in terror from the house, Seth witnesses the men in the Cadillac abducting Kim.

Cameron's body begins to deteriorate from radiation sickness, which Seth attributes to Dolphin's supposed vampirism. Kim's body is discovered the next day, and law enforcement authorities still believe that Luke is alive and responsible. As Cameron and Dolphin grow closer and plot to run away together, Seth focuses his rage at Dolphin. He consults with the fetus "angel Eben" that night on how to deal with her. On the spur of the moment the next day, as she is about to get a ride from them, he does not warn Dolphin of the men in the black Cadillac. Dolphin's body is found, and Cameron breaks down in front of Seth. Realizing he has effectively broken his brother, Seth runs to a nearby field and, overwhelmed with anger, screams at the setting sun.

Cast

* Jeremy Cooper as Seth Dove
* Viggo Mortensen as Cameron Dove
* Lindsay Duncan as Dolphin Blue
* Sheila Moore as Ruth Dove
* Duncan Fraser as Luke Dove
* David Longworth as Joshua
* Robert Koons as Sheriff Ticker
* David Bloom as Deputy
* Evan Hall as Kim
* Codie Lucas Wilbee as Eben
* Sherry Bie as Cassie
* Jason Wolfe as Cadillac Driver
* Dean Hass as Passenger
* Guy Buller as Passenger
* Jason Brownlow as Passenger
* Jeff Walker as Adam Blue
* Joyce Robbins as Twin
* Jacqueline Robbins as Twin
* Debi Greenawdt as First Woman
* Sandra Redmond as Second Woman
* Walt Healy as Old Man

Production

Philip Ridley was inspired to write the screenplay for ''The Reflecting Skin'' after completing a sequence of artworks titled ''American Gothic'' whilst studying at St Martin's School of Art. "I read a lot of American literature when I was a child growing up and saw a lot of American films so what I did, particularly in ''The Reflecting Skin'', is that I created a fabulous child-eyed view of what I imagined America to be like – it's a kind of mythical once upon a time never-world, where guys look like Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley, and everything is set in a Wheatfield and it all looks very American gothic." Upon directing two short films (''Visiting Mr. Beak'' and ''The Universe of Dermot Finn'') and completing the screenplay for '' The Krays'' (directed by Peter Medak), Ridley received $1.5 million of funding from the BBC
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