Please ID this weird 80's HBO movie

[JohnL]

I'm 99% sure this was an HBO original, made in the late 80's, but I'm not positive. I thought it had something to do with Ray Bradbury, but I looked him up on the IMDB and nothing connected to him seemed like what I'm remembering.

I believe it was set in the 1940's or so, in a small town, possible out in the desert. I only really remember a couple of details;

In one scene a couple of boys use a straw and inflate a live frog until it's blown up like a balloon, then they leave it on a path. When a girl comes along and stops to take a closer look at the frog, one of the boys shoots the frog with a slingshot so that it pops and splatters the girl with blood.

In another part of the movie, either a boy or a girl is hiding (if I remember correctly) a pig fetus, possibly deformed, in a box. Or maybe it was several. I don't remember why.

I seem to recall that the people in the movie seemed almost Amish, wearing lots of black, and I *THINK* that the movie might have been an anthology, or at least switched to following different characters as the movie went on.

Does this ring any bells for anyone?

[Mofo Rising]

Yup.

The movie is The Reflecting Skin.

As far as I know, it wasn't an HBO production, but then I have no real info on that point.

SPOILERS!  THE ENTIRE PLOT!
It was a single movie.  If you want to know the plot, a young boy lives in an isolated farm community.  Both of his parents are crazy in one way or another.  His father was a homosexual who got caught in a relationship with a younger boy.  Not pedophile young, but still completely deviant in the community.  His mother never got over the departure of the older brother, who left to fight in the Pacific theater of WWII.

Anyway, children start showing up dead and violated.  This probably has something to do with the black car full of miscreants that keep showing up, but nobody has seen them but Seth, our young hero.  Seth's father is of course immediately questioned because he is a well known deviant.  He kills himself in one of the best death scenes I've seen in a movie.

Let's go back a minute.  The lady you remember the kids torturing was a despairing widow who happened to live in the community.  She creeps Seth out with ther despairing ways and convinces Seth that she must be a vampire.  (He's a kid whose father reads pulp fictions.)

At any rate, after Pa dies the older brother returns.  He's none to happy to be back in this hell hole of a family life.  Unfortunately he was also subject to quite a bit of fallout from the nuclear weapons of the Pacific theater.  He also gets involved with the young widow mentioned previously.  Seth doesn't like that, she's a vampire, remember?  It's even worse when he starts showing signs of radiation poisoning.  Must be that vampire, right?

As you can guess, all goes wrong.  I'll leave you to the end if you've read this far and still want to see the film.
END SPOILERS!

I picked this one up on a whim from the video store while I was still in high school and was amazed at the absolute despair of the film.  This was still when I was exploring avenues of film I had never been down before.  I still really like the film, but now realize that is a cornucopia of horror tropes.  If you weren't raised on such like I was, you probably wouldn't like it.  Still, it's an interesting exercise in sustained insanity.  Definitely one to seek out if you think you're of the right mindset.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Fantastic job Mofo.

I have never heard of the film, but it does look to be one to check out.

[JohnL]

>The movie is The Reflecting Skin.

Thanks!

>As far as I know, it wasn't an HBO production, but then I have no real info on that

I'm not sure why I thought it was an HBO original, or that it was connected to Ray Bradbury.