Review for Blood Simple

Some films just get better every time you watch them. ‘Blood Simple’ is like that. A precociously good debut from the Coen brothers who looked like a couple of unkempt youths at the time of making it. When I reviewed the DVD for this very site fourteen years ago (as part of a Coen brothers box-set which also included other gems like ‘Barton Fink’, ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’ and ‘The Big Lebowski’) I remarked on the fact that 20 years had passed since its original theatrical release. Well, make that 34 now, which is unbelievable.

It’s a film that is so steeped in traditional film noir, albeit slightly off-kilter in true Coen brothers style, that it really doesn’t feel dated. It’s also great to see it on Blu-Ray in a restored edition of ‘The Director’s Cut’ which, again in true Coen Brothers style, runs slightly shorter than the original. To be fair, those two or three minutes may well have been aggregated over the whole film with a general tightening up though I don’t know the film well enough to comment. You’d need to do a semi-academic ‘side by side’ comparison to note the differences and, as dedicated as I am to the cause, I wasn’t about to do that.

I don’t know how this edition compares with a previous Blu-Ray release of this cut which was issued in 2013 but, despite being a low budget film that was shot for the most part in the night, it looks in great shape.

When it was released originally, in 1984, it seemed to come out of left field at the time. Brilliantly penned and directed by the brothers Coen, even its painfully low budget didn`t stop them turning out a first-class thriller.

The movie kicks off in the pouring rain as the cameraman films the back of the heads of a moving car’s two occupants, silhouetted against the night sky and occasionally highlighted by oncoming car headlamps. The conversation is intense and earnest, a little Lynch-like to start with. The trouble here is we`ve entered mid-plot and it takes a while to catch up.


Ray (John Getz), a laidback bartender, is giving Abby (Frances McDormand), the wife of his intense Greek-American boss, Marty (Dan Hedaya), a lift out of town. She has left her husband and Ray stepped in to help. Before long, Ray admits that he has always liked Abby. In ‘that way’. It seems the attraction is mutual and before long, they begin a passionate affair. Which doesn’t go down too well with Marty.

Marty, the Greek Bar-Boss, hires a sleazy overweight Texan Private dick (M. Emmet Walsh) to follow his unfaithful wife and he`s clearly destroyed when faced with photographic evidence of his wife`s continuing infidelities. Things get nasty and Marty decides to pay the sleazy PD to kill both his wife and her new lover, bar man Ray. All looks straightforward enough until we discover that evil sleaze ball PI Loren Visser has sinister plans of his own. But like all great plots they don`t always go the way you think they might and this one has more twists and turns than Hampton Court maze.


There is plenty of foreboding tension throughout and the film is certainly not for the squeamish. At least one of the Coen’s cut his teeth helping out on early eighties slashers and video nasties and some of that is certainly present here. But this anything but a played by numbers gore-fest.

The cast performances are stunning too, evoking small time America, texas-style, with an absolute stand-out performance by M. Emmet Walsh. There’s a great interview with the man himself on the extra features where he reveals that he insisted on daily cash from the Coen’s as he didn’t trust them to begin with. After all – who the hell were they? He also visibly wells up at the recollection that he missed the original previews because he would have to have paid his airfare himself – a source of much regret, it would seem. As the sleazy PI with a slow Texan drawl and furtive, untrustworthy eyes, his performance is sublime.


Cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who apparently cut his teeth making 8mm and 16mm porn loops in the 1970s, does a great job with some incredibly challenging low-light conditions. Unbelievably this was his first movie, though he went on to be DoP on two further Coen Brothers pictures before becoming a director himself.

Sound designer Skip Lievsay and composer Carter Burw did sterling work on the soundtrack to `Blood Simple` and have worked on every Coen Bros film since. The dark, atmospheric mix of orchestration and occasional solo piano, sound effects (like the skippety-skip and panting of the dog`s approach when the new lovers return to the `family home`) and indefinable brooding tensions created by god knows what contribute to the darkness of this brilliant movie. It should be said that the Coen’s are inclined to use music sparingly in their films – only when utterly necessary. There are chunks of Blood Simple where the echoey silence is enough.


I remember the DVD edition containing just a single extra feature – a parody of a ‘Director’s Commentary’ which, once I twigged, became a bit wearisome. That’s not included on this set but it has many more fantastic contextual extras, some of which are new to this edition.

· New interview with Joel & Ethan Coen – the brothers are beginning to grow out of their geeky young lad looks (well, they’re both in their Sixties now so it’s kind of inevitable) but are still quirky and fun to listen to. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since ‘Blood Simple’ but it’s clear that they both view it with great affection, seeing is as the film that allowed them to learn how to make movies in the first place.

· New interview with M Emmett Walsh – I must confess to be somewhat surprised by this inclusion as I thought he was pretty much in his twilight years back when the film was made, but he’s still in fine fettle. Born in 1935, that makes him 82, and he was a mere 49 when the film was made, though looked older. Apparently he’s made more than 200 films and TV shows. It’s a lovely, frank interview from a fine actor.

· New interview with John Getz – the ‘handsome’ one in the film, and super-laid back, he reminds me of David Soul in Starsky and Hutch and indeed, has played many similar roles in features and TV shows since then. He clearly loved being in the film and remains extremely proud of it.

· Criterion interview with Frances McDormand – a fascinating interview with not only a fantastic actress, but one who fell in love with (and later married) Joel Coen during the filming of ‘Blood Simple’. They have collaborated many times since and her anecdotal tales of how she ‘got in the zone’ for certain sequences were fascinating.

· Investor trailer - a fascinating low budget, scene-setting ‘trailer’ for the film, made before production had even begun in order to help raise finance and brief crew and actors.

· Intro by Mortimer Young – a deliberately over-the-top and hammy introduction to the film, somewhat like the fake Director’s Commentary, puncturing the seriousness and pomposity that sometimes goes along with ‘Director’s Cuts’ and serious movies. It’s only short so worth a watch for a chuckle. Very Coen brothers of course.


`Blood Simple` is a stunning debut from the wonderful Coen Brothers. `It scores high on all counts; despite its very modest budget it looks great, it`s a great story that puts it amongst the top-crop of classic screen thrillers, and the dialogue, cinematography and performances are all first-class. This edition looks great and comes packed with lots of fun, contextual extras. If you don’t yet have it in your collection, what are you waiting for?