A jealous husband hires a private investigator to kill
his wife and her lover, but everything goes horribly wrong. HORROR
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Blood Simple (1984)Written and Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Starring Frances McDormand, John Getz, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh, Samm-Art Williams |
Blood Simple was the first film by the Coen Brothers and introduced the world to their signature style that would eventually become associated with the cream of the crop in regards to film. The story is your standard private snoop number, but with a killer twist that only the Coens could provide. Right off the bat, they give us a solid cast of notable character actors and a wildly unpredictable script.
The characters of Blood Simple are some of the Coens' most despicable excuses for human beings, especially M. Emmet Walsh as Loren Visser. Visser is hired by Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) to kill his cheating wife Abby (Frances McDormand) and her lover Ray (John Getz), starting a chain reaction that goes in every direction except the one you expected. I never expected this to be a horror film, but it has all the elements. I must also note that the score by Carter Burwell is unexpectedly creepy and fits the tone of the film perfectly. Blood Simple is a surefire Coen hit that shows the consequences of planned murder, a motif that the Coens would later perfect with Fargo. This film takes traditional character tropes and turns them upside down to craft an unpredictable horror-thriller that's built solely on Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. |