A Beach in the prairies?

Media Moment: The Reflecting Skin

Queen Related: Jim Beach

I had heard some interesting things about this 1990 “vampire” movie, not the least of which was that it was filmed in my backyard here in southern Alberta. So when I saw it scheduled on the Sundance Channel the other night, I recorded it for a future viewing.

The opening scene showing Jeremy Cooper (bottom photo) walking through the yellow wheat field was certainly recognizable to me, although I can't say I ever came across any bullfrogs in these fields, like the one that exploded here (top photo).

What I did not expect to see in this movie was the name of Jim Beach as the executive producer. What? Is this the same person who managed Queen’s career? Hmm, let’s see . . . the writer/director is British and this movie was a BBC co-production, so there was some evidence to support my hunch.

A visit to IMDB removed any doubt, however. Clicking on the hyperlink for Jim Beach brought up his profile page and, sure enough, the only bio description of him said, “Is the long-time manager of rock group Queen.” He has a few other executive producer credits over the years, so this movie is not a one-off for him. I suppose that his time commitment to Queen was significantly less in 1990 since Freddie would have been very ill at that time and the band itself was essentially winding down.

As for the movie itself, it’s very Lynch-esque in not only its look and feel, but the flow of the narrative is similar to Blue Velvet and grotesque in many ways like Eraserhead. This film also features an early appearance of Viggo Mortensen who is always interesting to watch. Definitely worth a look if you’re a fan of David Lynch or just curious to see what Jim Beach was involved in.