The atrocities experienced during childhood in rural America in the 1950s, in the immediate post-war period.

Little Seth finds himself living and witnessing disturbing and terrible events, he doesn't have the maturity to fully understand them therefore he attributes these terrible facts to the presence of vampires, in dead children he wants to see angels and therefore notes of the fantasy world in a torn reality.
Philip Ridley's direction is great in creating atmospheres and moments of a very high visual force, the staging, the construction of the shots give pictorial and highly suggestive moments.
Hints of Cimino, Malick and also Erice, the power of the visual system makes the spectator totally immerse himself in the story, in the drama that manages to have horror atmospheres.
Dolphin's house, the girl that Seth believes to be a vampire, the entrance sequence is excellent, Seth advancing framed from bottom to top, the house in the center of the 'shot in a highly pictorial scenario between the enveloping wheat and the sky above, the yellow and the light blue manage to both be present creating paintings and a highly charged sequence.
The cathartic moment of Seth's father is masterful , the direction takes its time to give intensity, the father at the petrol pump, the match, all in rhythm, the detail of Seth covering his eyes and catching a glimpse of the fire is grandiose as is the subsequent shot on the total of the fire that results majestic.
The settings have a lot of presence in the film, excellent use and construction of shots through medium and long shots always give strength to the story.

The return of Cameron, Seth's older brother and soldier, his younger brother runs to welcome him wrapped like a cloak with the American flag, but in Cameron there is no triumphalism, there is no peace for the family, there is no glory, much less a prospect of tranquility or stability.
It's all shrouded in pain and tragedy.

In various situations the film also uses Hitchcockian suspense as the viewer knows what the men are doing inside the black car while Seth, too small, he doesn't seem to understand it just like the unfortunate victims present on the scene.
So when you see the car arriving there is tension.

The characters who arrive in the distance like Cameron but also the Dolphin's entrance on the scene recalls the western, in terms of timing, intensity and arid photography between the yellows of the wheat and the sunlight.
On a writing level, it also works to see the change in Seth's mother, at first severe and punitive but then she too will enter a vortex of desperation and will in fact be absent, taciturn, totally resigned due to all the tragedies that are happening, and one in particular that concerns her family.
The ending is fantastic and very powerful, Seth who flees among the wheat during sunset with the sunlight illuminating the child from behind thus covering him completely in darkness who screams as he falls to his knees.
Beautiful, highly pictorial film that tells of the cruelties of an America in the aftermath war with no glorification or exaltation, giving the film horror atmospheres and impactful visual moments, all experienced from the point of view of Seth who will try to interpret the tragedy through the fantastic and the religious.