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BENEATH HER
LOVING SKIN
A psychological horror exploring a child’s confrontation with his mother’s terminal illness through surreal, horrific metaphors that evoke an unsettling verisimilitude to life.
It’s 1996. I’m 8 years old. I dream about her every night. She looks like my mother... but she’s not-mother.
BY ROBIN BLANCHARD
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BIOGRAPHICAL
INSPIRATION
When I was 8 years old, I had a recurring nightmare. Every night, I dreamt my father discovered a well beneath our house. Inside, there was a creature that looked like my motheR—but she wasn’t my mother.
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This “not-mother” was violent, malicious, unforgiving. She tried to replace her, to take over our family. Looking back, I see she was my child-mind’s way of coping with the reality of my mother’s illness, and the split in her psychological state.
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THEMES AND VISUALS: CINEMATIC INSPIRATION
Growing up, I turned to films to understand my mother’s illness, something my family couldn’t openly discuss. Cinema, such as The Fly, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Alien, Terminator, Twin Peaks, became a language — expressing the fear and trauma that words couldn’t touch.
Psychological Horrors, with their raw intensity, mirrored my mother’s experience: battling relentless pain as cancer spread through her spine. I couldn’t handle direct depictions of illness, but through these films’ metaphors, I found the truth in a way I could process. They spoke directly to me, transforming terror into resilience, and letting me explore fear safely, even as we faced it in real life.
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KEY CHARACTERS
mother: A loving and nurturing figure, whose sudden illness begins to strip away her warmth and humanity. She wants to protect her family from the burdens of her illness and needs to preserve her identity and role within the family as long as possible.
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THE BOY: A sensitive and imaginative young boy struggling to make sense of his mother’s mysterious illness. He wants to uncover the truth behind the changes to his mother. He needs to reconcile his fear of losing her to the harsh reality of terminality.
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THE FATHER: A dedicated but increasingly obsessed researcher, distracted from his family by his work. He wants to find a scientific explanation or solution to the mysterious evil (the illness) influence but needs to reconnect with his family and support them through the crisis.
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not-mother: A disturbing replica of the boy’s mother, symbolizing the darkest aspects of illness and transformation, seeking to replace the real mother. She craves acceptance, love, but cannot feel it. Unable to fulfill her role as real mother, she embodies the sinister aspects of the disease.
