The Reflecting Skin

In rural Idaho in the 1950s, eight-year-old Seth Dove spends his days roaming wheat fields and an abandoned church with his friends, acting on cruel impulses and absorbing the horror comics he loves. After a prank leaves a neighboring widow, Dolphin Blue, covered in blood, Seth becomes fixated on her, growing convinced that the solitary woman who dresses in black is a vampire. Around him, his family is coming apart and children are disappearing from the area, and no one takes the boy's suspicions seriously.

Philip Ridley wrote and directed this film, released in 1990 and running 95 minutes. It was a British and Canadian co-production, made by BBC Film, the National Film Trustee Company, British Screen Productions and Zenith Entertainment, and produced by Ray Burdis and Dominic Anciano. Jeremy Cooper plays Seth, with Lindsay Duncan as Dolphin Blue, Viggo Mortensen as Seth's older brother Cameron, and Sheila Moore, Duncan Fraser and David Longworth among the credited cast of 21.

The film draws a 6.7 rating on IMDb from around 10,000 votes and a matching 6.7 on TMDB from a much smaller base of 228. The two audiences agree closely on the film, and the smaller TMDB sample points to a more limited following there. It blends drama, horror and thriller elements into a rural childhood story seen largely through a boy's perspective.