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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

...unless they actually WANTED the music to sound like something from a 1970s Italian melodrama. Then fire the writer, because the plot is all over the map. Then fire the director, because he's probably the only person on the planet who could get a bad performance out of Viggo Mortensen (I realize the writer and the director are one-in-the-same...one less person to fire). Finally, fire the casting director because the kids in this movie, especially the lead one, are absolutely AWFUL and can...not...ACT!

I can't believe this movie got so many good reviews. It redefines the definition of "awful." It's too late for me, but you, you save yourself (if it's not too late)!

I don't get why this is classified as horror? I watched this because I heard it was a drama about child abuse, which I suppose is partially true. It is filled with truly terrible people, but there is no horror in the traditional sense to speak of. Yes, people get lit on fire, animals are either tortured or torture is described, and and that's just the tip of the ice burg here. However, you may read that going "Sounds like horror to me", it isn't presented in that way, however, it is written both hamfistedly moralistic and morally vague, what with the characters who describe awful things as though they are talking about a recipe for scones at times.

Many will call this artsy fartsy, and I suppose they are not wrong, it definitely has ambitions for high art. If you have watched any of the films by Todd Solondz and liked them, you will enjoy this(I don't like Solondz, but I did enjoy this film, so it isn't a prerequisite). His films are all shock, and little style, whereas the reflecting skin is a highly allegorical tale shot in a beautiful and artistic matter. The shots of fields of grain are just breathtakingly beautiful.

The acting here is fantastic, especially given the surreal and bizarre events of the film. Even the child actors do a great job. Again, technically this film is so well-made, it is one of the prettiest films, at times, I have watched. who thought a wheat field could look so beautiful? Some people may see flaws in the script due to it's horrible characters, but it is obvious this film was not written to have characters you like... So that is not a flaw in the script, it is personal preference of the viewer. The main child character, somehow garners sympathy, even though he is just as awful, if not more so than the adults.

This film stands the test of time, and far exceeds many of the films that were it's contemporaries in most regards, but as technically proficient as it is, it is not a film for the masses. If you look at this as an allegory for the end of childhood innocence and death, it will probably make a heck of a lot more sense.

God Bless ~Amy

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."

This movie starts out well, then goes off the rails. It could've had a believable ending if the protagonist, Seth, had said anything about things that he knew and saw, like any child would reasonably do, at any of several points in the story. I know that children growing up in sick, abusive families don't always behave in expected ways, but Seth discusses many, many events in his life normally with others, making his silence on the key events unbelievable. I kept waiting for him to suddenly reveal the key events to others, but that revelation never comes. The cinematography is beautiful. The story is well-acted; it just isn't believable.

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.

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.