It's about a young boy, Seth Dove, his brother Cameron, and a local woman, Dolphin Blue who he believes is a vampire. Seth's bleak life gets worse when the murder of a local child sets off a series of strange and terrible events.
A pre-stardom Viggo Mortensen plays Cameron.
Provides examples of:
- 11th-Hour Costume Change: Throughout the whole movie Dolphin wears dark clothes. Then near the climax she dresses herself in white, as though leaving her black mood and depression behind and starting anew.
- All Gays Are Pedophiles: Local law enforcement believes that Seth's father killed Eben because he was caught kissing a boy in a barn "years ago." Seth's mother protests that the boy was not a boy, he was 17. It isn't clear how old Seth's father was, but because this event happened before Seth's parents were married, and Seth's older brother looks to be around 20, we can guess that he was quite a bit younger.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Seth and his friend Kim catch Dolphin masturbating in her living room.
- Chekhov's Gun: Seth takes Dolphin's spear just as some kind of a souvenir that later is used by a drunkard in a fight with Cameron.
- Companion Cube: It's weird enough when Seth finds a mummified fetus and takes it home, believing said fetus to be the angel incarnation of his dead friend Eben. It's weirder when he starts talking to the fetus.
- Contrived Coincidence: Naturally, the vampire pulp horror magazine that Seth reads has on the cover a vampire woman who dresses just like Dolphin dresses, shown in a field of wheat with a farmhouse just like Dolphin's wheat field and farm house.
- Creepy Twins: Why are two middle-aged twin women, dressed all in black, carrying a dead bird and making weird chirping noises? Hard to say, but it's definitely creepy.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Most of the characters in the movie have it.
- Death of a Child: The plot kicks off when Seth's friend Eben is killed. Then Seth finds an ossified fetus in an abandoned barn. Then another one of Seth's friends, Kim, is killed.
- Dissonant Serenity: Some characters in the film remain strangely calm in various difficult situations. Cameron does not mind carrying around a picture of a baby in pain, probably it is just a souvenir for him or a keepsake from the army. Seth is ok talking to a dead fetus he considers his friend, also the gas station fire amuses him for some reason. The killers are surprisingly friendly to Seth and they are aware he knows about them.
- Dramatic Drop: Seth drops his tin cup when he opens the lid to the well and finds Eben's body floating in it.
- Dysfunction Junction: All characters in the film are weighed down with various sorts of problems, both mental and physical. Some things come off as more or less ordinary, like living at the back of beyond among wheat fields. And then there is some downright crazy stuff to cope with, for example being hated by the whole community or suffering from radiation poisoning.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: The gas station burning scene features four people watching the fire and the camera gradualy moves from one to another to show how differently each person reacts to the tragedy. Seth's mother is choleric, the deputy is phlegmatic, Joshua is melancholic and Seth is sanguine.
- Gothic Horror: Apparently, Philip Ridley was inspired to write the script after he did a series of artworks inspired by American gothic at school.
- Greaser Delinquents: A group of greasers wearing the standard outfit—leather jackets, greased-back hair, white t-shirts—pull up at the Dove family's gas station. They turn out to be Serial Killers.
- Hated Hometown: Cameron says it is ugly there.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Seth's question to his dad, "Any vampires around these parts, Pa?", is immediately followed by Dolphin walking by.
- Match Cut: From the full moon at night to the sun the next morning.
- Murder by Inaction: Seth knows that the four Greaser Delinquents are the real killers. But he says nothing and lets Dolphin, whom he thinks is a vampire, get in the car with them. She's killed.
- Noodle Incident: How did a mummified fetus wind up in a barn?
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: One that has tragic consequences. Dolphin says that after her husband's death there's no sunshine in her life, and "I hate sunshine." She then says she's two hundred years old, which is an obvious metaphor for her *feeling* old. Dumb little Seth takes those two comments, hating sunshine and being super-old, to signify that Dolphin is a vampire.
- Police Are Useless: As the sheriff says, "every cop in the state on the job", yet to no avail. He also says: "People stop me and say, Sheriff Ticker, what's happenin'? And I have to say, I don't rightly know."
- Rule of Symbolism: When Seth sits on a chair in Dolphin's house there are bone jaws on the wall behind him, wide open, as if about to swallow the boy. And as a matter of fact he remains in danger throughout the whole movie, whether it be of getting killed or going mad from everything.
- Skyward Scream: Ends with Seth screaming to the sky after they find Dolphin's body.
- Southern Gothic: The movie is set in the south. It has gothic themes too. The usual stuff: religion, dark secrets, lurking danger, so on and so forth.
- Trauma Conga Line: Pretty much every character in this movie goes through this. Seth starts out as a meanspirited child with an abusive mother, and it gets worse. Dolphin Blue starts out as a desperately lonely widow and it gets worse. Cameron starts out as a remorseful, traumatized veteran and it gets worse.
