Original Post Date: 12.25.18
The Reflecting Skin (1990) tells the story of little Seth Dove who lives with his dysfunctional family in 50’s rural America. Seth is eight years old and likes to play with his friends and kill frogs and scare people. One could say he is living a rough childhood.
Seth idolizes his big brother, tolerates his mother, and hangs around with his father a little too much (I am not going to get into it, you will have to find out by yourself if you decide to watch the movie). His father is the reason why he thinks the ‘odd’ neighbor is a Vampire, but only because he shared what a Vampire was in the first place as Seth was curious about what dad was reading… he was reading about Vampires.
So naturally, when Seth’s mom made him go apologize to the ‘odd’ neighbor for scaring her with the exploding frog, Seth—with his young and naive hyper-active imagination—made the decision to believe she was one of those Vampires papa had told him about. This is when Seth seals the grim fate for those around him.
By this point in the story a lot of very disturbing events happened around Seth, none of them involving the ‘odd’ neighbor whose name was Dolphin Blue by the way. (Regarding the disturbing events, I am leaving them out of this post because I can’t even you guys.) But hey, wait, not everything was totally bad for our main little guy as his brother returned from the military which made Seth so incredibly happy. The thing was, when the brother, Cameron, saw Dolphin he was taken with her almost immediately, no, really, it was like seeing a moth to a flame; this made Seth angry so Cameron tried to patch things up with him by sharing some photographs that he had in his wallet.
This last picture with the three photographs was so powerful to me. A grown man showing images of Sex and Violence juxtaposed with real Family to a kid just to bond? I have opinions. Anywhohow.
By the way, did I mention there was a creepy dead baby? Yep. Our little guy found it and kept it under his bed and believed it was his dead friend now in the form of an angel… also, side note, I am just remembering a funny line from Seth when Cameron asked him to leave him alone and go out and play with his friends; Seth said, “I can’t, they are all dead.” The way he said it was so matter-of-factly that my jaw dropped. Wow, Seth.
Okay, let’s go back to Cameron and Dolphin’s romance for a sec. They seemed to be the real deal and actually made plans to live together on their own and mind you, Seth still strongly believed Dolphin was a real Vampire, he even confronted Cameron when Cameron complained he was suddenly ‘getting old’ as he was noticeably losing weight, losing hair, and on top of things had bleeding gums. (Okay, honey, little Seth, baby, it was the 50’s in rural America, there could have been at least a dozen medical reasons why your brother was having those symptoms, malnutrition being the first one that comes to mind but okay, you want to play Van Helsing, be my guest I guess.) Where was I? Oh yeah, Seth confronts Cameron and tells him Dolphin was drinking his blood (he spied on them while being intimate) and that he should stop seeing her, to what Cameron took offense because Goddammit you are a kid and vampires do not exist!
It is now time to get serious in this post.
So, murders have been happening in this small town where everyone knows each other, yet no one, not even the police, knows who is behind the killings. The thing was, Seth saw a gang in a black car abduct his friend—same friend who later on turned out dead inside a shed—but didn’t tell anyone, not even to the police, of what he had seen. My personal Marath reasoning for this was because in his mind, Seth ‘knew’ the Vampire had to be behind the killings for sure, so the gang was just a coincidence…
Enter the following scene. Dolphin was waiting to catch a ride into the city, and while waiting she and Seth had a super weird conversation as she was telling him how one day he was going to get old and be alone and die to what Seth didn’t take so well. So Seth, realizing the gang in the black car was back and was going to give a ride to Dolphin, didn’t say anything and let her get in the car without warning her. Was Seth trying to take vengeance on her for ‘hurting’ his brother? Or was he really that naive and didn’t put two and two together about the gang being the killers?
Okay, this frame tells me Seth was trying to hurt her by letting the killers take her (devilish grin):
This one tells me he had no idea the gang was dangerous (kid being a kid):
3, 2, 1, Surprise! Dolphin is dead and your brother is heartbroken. Double surprise! By her being dead proves that Dolphin was not a Vampire and that Vampires are not real. What you believed in was wrong and unknowingly (big question mark?) you sent a woman to her grave, Seth. Now feel bad about it.
Like I said, rough childhood.
- Marath