source: The Reflecting Skin

Trailer—The Reflecting Skin

It's not uncommon to see films about childhood that show life prom their point of view and incorporate an element of fantasy in the process, but it's rare that the vision be this bleak and the fantasy so dark. Little Seth has a lot to deal with ... his friends are disappearing and turning up murdered. His father is suspected due to a past homosexual indiscretion. His mother is a crazy person obsessed with the smell of gasoline and the return of his elder brother (Viggo Mortensen) from WWII. His neighbor, a very depressed widow, is a vampire ... and she's probably killing his brother. His dead friend returns as some sort of rotting fetal angel. Friendly leather boys roam the plains in a shiny car. Dick Pope's cinematography is beautiful. Fans of David Lynch want to see this, yet it has it's own very unique tone.

The Reflecting Skin (1990) is Philip Ridley's directorial debut. It's a dark tale about a young child who lives in a small rural community surrounded by madness and despair. Many people either don't understand the greatness of this film or they're turned off by it's dark subject matter. I however found this film to be highly entertaining. Mr. Ridley should be commended for putting together such an interesting piece of work. Strange stuff but I highly recommend this dark art house film. A.

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.

No real plot here--just about the VERY weird, sick adventures of a young kid growing up in the middle of nowhere. Very stark with just gorgeous photography but filled with unpleasant characters, situations and depression. What's the point of all this? Some people have compared this to David Lynch--but Lynch has a REASON for his bizarre imagery and he has plots--this movie has neither. I kept watching in the hope that it would all come together in the end--no such luck. SPOILER It does have a great closing sequence though with the little kid screaming full blast up into the sky. It hit me with a wallop--maybe because I was feeling the same way! Sure to depress you. A justly forgotten film. Avoid at all costs.

"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.

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.

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.

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.