FROM:The Oregonian October 1991

Philip Ridley's film ``The Reflecting Skin'' is a sun-drenched nightmare, an Alice-in-Wonderland whose boy hero can't tell which side of the looking glass he's on.

Somewhere in prairie America, sometime in the late '50s, Seth Dove (Jeremy Cooper) lives with his embattled parents, awaiting the return of his soldier brother from the South Pacific H-bomb range. Seth and his two little friends play gross tricks, and when the victim reports a particularly nasty one to Seth's mother, he is told to go to her house to apologize.

She is Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan), a strange, pale English widow who tells a fearful tale of her young husband's suicide.

Inspired by a trash novel he is reading, 8-year-old Seth decides that she is a vampire.
While this fanciful fear occupies Seth, real terror intrudes. One of his friends is found dead in the Doves' well, and Seth's long-broken father is called a suspect by a sheriff who leaps to this conclusion without the benefit of even the beginning of a clue.

A black Cadillac bearing four sinister young men drives restlessly around the dirt roads between the vast, golden wheatfields.

When Seth's brother Cameron (Viggo Mortensen) does return, he and Dolphin develop an instant attraction. Seth is even more upset. He feels Dolphin is causing Cameron's weight loss, lassitude and falling hair. He knows nothing of radiation sickness.

Writer/director Ridley, who wrote ``The Krays,'' has created a world of almost tangible fear from open spaces, huge skyscapes, rustic dwellings and simple people.

Seth's tale has the illogical logic of a dream, and the whole affair could be his wounded memory trying to piece together one terror-stricken summer from 40 years ago.

Cinematographer Dick Pope and art director Rick Roberts give ``Skin'' a surrealistic look without tricks or special effects. Nick Bicat's busy orchestral score adds to the growing tension.

Young Jeremy Cooper does well as the troubled Seth Dove. Seth is not a good little boy, but he sometimes means well, and he's not really bad. He may even be better than he appears. Guilt can play terrible tricks on memory, which is fragile enough unmolested.

``Skin'' is the tale of a tortured memory, a tale that never falters, down to the last shot. REVIEW The Reflecting Skin *** Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Cooper Director/writer: Philip Ridley Rating: R for nudity, violence, language Running time: 90 minutes Playing at: Cinema 21 through Thursday