Blood Simple (1984) User Reviews (381)

Try to watch this without talking to the characters...

[bross3 · 8/10 · 21 April 2000]

I think this film, probably more than any other, causes me to talk to the characters on the screen in an exasperated way--something akin to the way you want to yell at the characters in a slasher movie not to run outside to investigate sounds.

The only difference is that this film is fantastic, whereas cheap slasher movies are not. Blood Simple is emotionally involving and the suspense is played to perfection. While the characters are completely clueless as to what has gone on around them, we know everything. What we don't know is what the characters are going to do next.

As in every Coen film, things quickly get out of control. Some people have commented that the characters here acted unbelievably, but I'd have to say that when you think about their situations, the reactions are completely compatible with the way the characters are set up. The problem is that nobody knows what's going on except the viewers.

Coen fans will notice many recurring themes from their other films (especially Fargo and The Big Lebowski) such as the use of headlights, passing motorists witnessing a crime, shower curtains and bathroom windows, detectives driving VW beetles, husbands hiring the wrong people to carry out a crime... I had a longer list in mind earlier while watching it but I've forgotten some. It's almost like these films all go together as a series of films depicting how similar situations would end up in different locations in America.

First outing for the Coens is an outstanding 80's film noir thriller

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 24 July 2015]

This is the Coen brothers' directorial film debut, and not only is it different from most other films in the Coens' catalog of work, it is just a different kind of film altogether. With a budget of just a little more than one million dollars and four main characters, the Coen brothers created a film noir thriller 35 years after the genre had expired. In this film the Coens demonstrate that if you have a conscience, a killing can be hard to carry out, but regardless of whether or not you have a conscience, a killing is hard to get away with.

Throughout the film, as is true in many film noirs, the audience is kept aware of most of what is really going on, which is a grand misunderstanding with very tragic consequences. The four characters are all being misled by the incomplete part of the jigsaw puzzle that each of them possesses. The setup is simple enough: Ray is having an affair with Abby, wife of his evil boss Marty. Marty gets angry about the situation and decides to pay a private eye to murder both of them. Things proceed to go as badly as possible for everyone from that point on as each of our characters are mainly motivated by mistrust - even the young lovers Ray and Abby.

What makes Blood Simple different from other Coen brothers films is he complete lack of humor throughout the entire film. Even the bleak "Fargo" is sprinkled with humor throughout. Equally noticeable is the cold remoteness that fills every square inch of this film which includes everything from Abby's Texas-sized apartment, to the flat open stretches of Texas landscape. This cold remoteness just seems to magnify the quiet terror of what is going on. For in this movie, the spilling of blood isn't clean, easy, or free of emotional consequence. For example, when one character is in the process of burying the "body" of someone he believed had been murdered by someone else, he finds out, much to his surprise, that the person is actually still alive. Now faced with the "necessity" of killing this person to cover up the crime, he finds the task impossible to do in a clean quick way - with a rifle. As a result, he winds up actually killing the person in the most horrible way possible - by simply ignoring the fact that he is still alive and burying him anyway - all because he is too queasy to commit the overt act of shooting someone himself. As we witness the sun come up on a day bereft of the life of the deceased and the entombment complete, it's very relieving to remember it's only a movie.

None of this is to say that Blood Simple isn't an enjoyable film. Seeing the characters and their lives come apart one by one will keep you riveted to your seat. We already know "who done it," we're just hanging around to see if the other characters figure out not only "who done it", but what it is that has been done in the first place. All the cast members were great and Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, and M. Emmett Walsh have gone on to bigger and better things since this movie was made. I just wonder what happened to John Getz, since he performed just as well as the other three only to remain largely unknown. With the exception of a small part in the remake of "The Fly" in 1986, I can't think of another film in which I've seen him.

In summary, the best thing about Blood Simple is that even if we always know what's happening, we never know what's going to happen next up to the very end. Highly recommended.

Texas noir

[bat-5 · 8/10 · 28 March 2000]

Blood Simple is pure Coens. There are the usual bag of cinematic tricks, the twisting storyline, the seamy characters, and the occasional droplet of dark humor. The story concerns a bar owner who thinks his wife is cheating on him. He hires a sleazy private investigator to find out, and when he learns the truth, he wants them dead. Trouble is, things get kind of complicated when a murder occurs. The film creates a palpable feeling of tension, where you don't know what to expect next. Half the fun of this film is trying to figure out what will happen. A true testament of the well sturctured nature of the film, is the fact that there are only four main characters, and they hold your attention till the very end. And in traditional film noir fanfare, all of these characters have some sort of sordid business to attend to. The Coens drew on their experiences on Blood Simple and made the similar, but very different, Fargo. Watch Blood Simple for a good old fashioned film noir that will keep you guessing.

The Coens' first great piece of cinema

[MaxBorg89 · 10/10 · 16 July 2008]

As far as directorial debuts go, few are as ambitious and inventive as the Coen brothers' first film, Blood Simple, as it mixes genres and moods in a way that anticipated Tarantino's similar experiments by a decade, while still retaining an apparent simplicity, both narratively and formally, that few people originally saw as the beginning of one of American cinema's most extraordinary careers.

Set in a stark Texas landscape, Blood Simple opens on a premise that seems to be borrowed from the likes of Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice: someone steals another man's wife. However, the two adulterous lovers (Jamie Getz and Frances McDormand) do not plan to assassinate the betrayed husband (Dan Hedaya). On the contrary, he hires a sleazy PI (M. Emmett Walsh) to spy on them to carry out some twisted plan of his own. That is, until the investigator goes rogue and the situation escalates in the most grotesque of ways.

This escalation is matched by the Coens' constant shifts between genres, achieved through lighting, music and camera movements. Noir, straightforward thriller, horror, black comedy: Blood Simple is each of these and all of them at once, but the transition is never forced or unnatural; in fact, these transitions occur because somehow the story itself demands that they happen. In a way, this is a film that is aware of its own fictitious nature and toys with it as much as possible - because it can. This has since become a trademark of the two brothers, and it is as fresh and original now as it was back in 1984.

The same can be said of the four main actors: Getz and McDormand (soon to be Mrs. Joel Coen) form a solid leading couple, thoroughly menaced by the sudden ferocity of Hedaya, then best known for playing Rhea Perlman's dim-witted ex-husband on Cheers (an image he gladly, and expertly, reverses here). And then there's Walsh, who takes his practically identical role in Blade Runner and increases the character's unlikability, turning in one of the most brutally charming villainous performances of the '80s (and of the Coen canon).

Joel and Ethan Coen had a very clear idea of what they wanted to achieve in the movie business from the get-go, and Blood Simple is one of the best examples of this: for 90 minutes, it takes you to a whole new world, one that most people are happy to revisit as often as they can.

Memorable Modern Noir

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 8 November 2005]

This was the Coen Brothers first movie and I think it might rank second-best to more-famous "Fargo."

This is suspenseful neo-noir (modern-day film noir) filled with fun direction by the Coens: low camera angles, closeups, concentration of sounds such as the whirring of an overhead fan, some dramatic pauses, strange characters and even stranger events taking place. The only thing missing I'd like to have is 5.1 surround sound.

Warning: some bloody scenes in here are downright gross, but they sure produce some memorable scenes.

Character-wise, Dan Hedeya proves to be the toughest man to kill I've ever seen in a movie! Frances McDormand is young and looks pretty, the best I've ever seen her look. John Getz's character is strange and sometimes to frustrating to watch and Emmet Walsh is outstanding at playing the sleazy private detective. Those four, along with Samm-Art Williams, comprise almost all the speaking parts in this film.

This is an involving movie. Once started, you're hooked on this strange story. I wish the Coens would have made more movies like this.

Stylish Thriller.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 26 August 2008]

An early effort by the Coen brothers, this is a little like a short story stretched out to feature length but executed with so much suspense and panache that it hardly registers that we are on the scenic route rather than the expressway.

Briefly, Frances McDormand, the wife of the moody and embittered Dan Hedaya, is having an affair with John Goetz, an employee of Hedaya's night club in Texas. Hedaya discovers the tryst through the services of the fat, wheezing, repulsive, but compliant private eye, M. Emmet Walsh.

Hedaya confronts McDormand in her house of adultery and tries to drag her out to his car. McDormand is a tough babe though. She bites his index finger, spins around and kicks him firmly in the jewels. This comes close to being a cliché in scenes in which strong women are attacked by brutal men, and the scripts ordinarily call for the man to groan and clutch his groin for a moment before springing back to the attack. Not here. Hedaya is positively disabled, falls to his knees in pain, struggles back to his feet, stumbles towards his car, down on his knees again, and vomits.

That little scene, in which most of our expectations are violated, is emblematic of the whole film. Nothing goes quite the way it was planned or the way we expect it to. A body that has been shot and remained motionless for hours in a pool of blood comes back to life unexpectedly. But not the way it's usually done, for shock value, as in so many slasher movies.

At any rate, Hedaya re-hired Walsh to kill the pair of sinners and dispose of their bodies. Instead, Walsh double-crosses Hedaya and shoots him with McDormand's little revolver, leaving the weapon behind as a frame. Goetz discovers the body and the gun and, believing that McDormand was the shooter, disposes of Hedaya's half-dead body by burying it alive. I'll skip the ending.

The Coen brothers have found themselves an honest and original style. And it IS original because it flies in the face of modern trends towards loud musical scores, instantaneous editing, wobbling cameras, shock cuts, lots of gutsy physicality, and a general sense of chaos. The pace is leisurely. Attention is paid to details, sometimes relevant (a forgotten cigarette lighter), sometimes not (the brass object on which a cigarette is stubbed out). But all add to the overall ambiance, with an effect similar to Hitchcock's but done quite differently. The art director should get a prize, but so should many other elements -- photography and lighting in particular. What I'm trying to get across is the notion that this -- and the Coen's subsequent films -- seems made for an adult audience rather than a horde of popcorn-eating, energy-drink-imbibing post adolescents. THAT audience will sit aghast during the climactic violence and wonder why they don't see any exploding squibs and why the accompanying score consists only of a muffled Mexican song from next door rather than some electronic, neuron-numbing, percussive assault.

Since 1984, the Coens have had some ups and some downs. (The ups include the near-masterpiece "Fargo".) None of them have been less than interesting. They're a modest, shambling sort of team, the Coens, and judging from the way they look today, they must have been about nine years old when they made "Blood Simple." They're among the most individualistic and innovative writers and directors working today.

See it.

brilliant noir

[robertsguenther · 9/10 · 26 August 2004]

This film is the Coen brothers' homage to the great noir thrillers of the golden age. Cheating spouses, feckless private dicks, mistaken identities, a bundle of dirty cash are rendered to their bare essence in the mess of rotting fish sitting on Marty's desk. The film is notable as much for the audacity of the Coen brothers in getting it made as it is for its success in turning the broad, open expanses of west texas into a claustrophobia unknown even to Saddam in his spider hole. It appears the Coens made five minutes of the film to show to investors, though they had absolutely no idea what the rest of the film would look like. They basically sold the mood of the film, and their efforts bore fruit. The film established the Coen brothers as a creative force and Frances McDormand as a rising art house star whose journey would eventually garner Oscar for the Coens' "Fargo." I rate it highly for visual appeal, intelligent story and good sheer suspense and terror.

Texas Is a Five-Letter Word Too.

[tfrizzell · 16 June 2005]

Demented and dominant directorial debut for Joel Coen as he and brother/co-writer Ethan Coen weave a film noir-styled tale of bad coincidences and worse planning. Sound familiar? In a bleak Texas landscape the wife (Frances McDormand) of a bar owner (Dan Hedaya) has a torrid affair with one of her husband's employees (John Getz). Hedaya hires mysterious private investigator/windbag M. Emmet Walsh to spy on the duo and then re-hires him to kill the adulterers. Naturally though nothing is as simple or clear as it seems. An excruciatingly dull start takes a backseat finally to a tense little tease of a film that benefits from a deliberate pace and a haunting musical score. "Blood Simple" is so well realized that it would have worked just as effectively as a silent flick. The dialogue is just a distraction to the picture's creepy atmosphere and enigmatic Texas landscape. Walsh, always known as a character actor, dominates most within the production's unique ensemble. Could be called "Pre-Fargo". 4 stars out of 5.

An Interesting Story Overshadowed by Sluggish Pacing

[SquigglyCrunch · 6/10 · 20 September 2016]

Blood Simple. follows a man who, upon discovering that his wife is cheating on him with one of his employees, decides that he wants to get rid of both people.

The story itself is very good. It's an interesting revenge-ish murder story that is presented very differently from how one might expect, as are many Coen Brothers' movies. The audience might make a prediction as to how it's going to go, then something totally unexpected will happen. Sometimes the movie will focus on something simply for the sake of throwing the audience off, which I think was an awesome idea.

Despite the amazing story and mostly great presentation, this movie is one of the most boring ones I've seen all year. I don't know why, it had everything going for it, I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I was probably supposed to. I ended up taking a couple breaks even just so I could move around and wake myself up a little more.

Nothing else about this movie is particularly exceptional. The acting is fine, the camera work is fine, the soundtrack is fine. There's nothing else worth mentioning, despite the fact that that's exactly what I'm doing right now.

Overall Blood Simple. is an unpredictable, interesting story that drags it's butt slowly along a bed of nails. Sure, there were parts of the movie that did pick up, but that was maybe ten minutes of this 95 minute movie. In the end I'd still recommend this movie. It's a story definitely worth seeing, and who knows? Maybe you won't find it as boring as I did.

A Dark Little Gem

[gbheron · 8/10 · 12 September 1999]

The Coen Brothers first commercial film tells a noirish tale of murder, double-cross, and betrayal in small town America. A greasy small-town Texas saloon owner discovers his wife is having an affair with one of his bartenders. He hires the private detective that documented the affair to kill the couple. But the PI has different plans, and then everything starts going wrong, very wrong. The acting is great especially M. Emmett Walsh as the double-crossing PI. The direction and camera work presage the Coens subsequent work.

This movie is a treat of a rental if you can find it. It's worth looking for.

A darker, more brooding affair than the directors' usual fare, this is an often slow thriller that has a few stand-out scenes of pure tension.

[Pjtaylor-96-138044 · 6/10 · 30 April 2018]

The Coen Brothers' first foray into feature film is a darker, more brooding affair than usual. 'Blood Simple. (1984)' features less fanciful dialogue and more slow-burning tension and when it works, it really works. Its blistering, nail-biting finale is a real highlight of the piece, as well as the eclectic directors' career. Often there are long stretches where I was honestly starting to get a little bored, though. This is down to is mostly down to a lax pacing that give the flick a laid-back and loose feel but contributes to a lull in excitement on more than one occasion. Still, the moments that stand out are really good. 6/10

Visual Flair, Quirky Characters & Offbeat Humour

[seymourblack-1 · 9/10 · 16 April 2010]

The first offerings of most filmmakers provide an interesting indication of the directions in which their future output is likely to develop. "Blood Simple" on the other hand is an example of a fully realised entity which contains so many of the qualities and stylistic touches which are now synonymous with the Coen Brothers' entire body of work that it's evident just how clear a vision they had of what they wanted to achieve right from the very start. For their debut, they brought to the screen a stereotypical film noir which contained familiar ingredients and themes, such as murder, betrayal, corruption, deceit, double crosses and plot twists and added black humour, gruesome violence and some compellingly eccentric characters.

The movie has a strong visual style which is produced by clever use of light, shadows and colour and also a variety of typical film noir camera angles. The disconcerting mood which this creates is also further enhanced by the predominantly laconic interactions between the characters and the fact that everyone in the movie is distrustful of everyone else. The screenplay is excellent and the amount of suspense and intrigue generated makes the story intense and very engaging throughout.

Texas bar owner Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) harbours suspicions about his wife Abby (Frances McDormand) and hires seedy private detective Loren Visser (M.Emmet-Walsh) to follow her. When Visser's investigations reveal that Abby is having an affair with one of Marty's employees, a barman called Ray (John Getz), Marty responds by offering Visser $10,000 to kill the couple. The private detective subsequently doctors a photograph he'd taken of Abby and Ray together to give the appearance that they'd been killed and meets with Marty to collect his money. Marty accepts the photograph as authentic and duly pays Visser his fee. When the transaction is complete, Visser promptly shoots Marty in the chest and leaves the gun (which belongs to Abby) close by.

The circumstances of Marty's murder lead to a sequence of misunderstandings and complications. Initially when Ray arrives at the crime scene and sees Abby's gun, he quickly deduces that she must've killed her husband and so he tries to cover up her crime. He moves the body which he intends to bury, into his car and drives down a highway but discovers that Marty (who had appeared to be dead) is still living. Ray goes ahead anyway and buries Marty alive.

Later, when Ray tells Abby what he's done to protect her and she doesn't understand, he assumes that she's being deceitful and this impression is reinforced sometime afterwards when she takes a silent telephone call which he assumes is from another lover. When Abby goes to the bar to check on what Ray has told her, she gets the impression that he must've gone to see Marty and got involved in a fight over the amount of wages which were due to him.

More serious trouble for the couple develops, however, when Visser realises that he's left a clue to his guilt at Marty's bar and sets about tying up all the loose ends. This involves the planned elimination of Abby and Ray and eventually brings the action to its gripping and very original climax.

Ray's an extremely familiar type of noir character as he's an ordinary guy who's unwittingly drawn into a situation which he doesn't understand, where events go increasingly out of control and where he isn't able to do anything to prevent matters from getting even worse. John Getz is suitably unpretentious in this role and conveys his character's bewilderment and growing sense of anxiety with great skill. Frances McDormand is also wonderfully understated as the adulterous Abby who's similarly baffled by what happens and frequently misunderstands what's going on.

Julian Marty is emotionally wounded, bitter and jealous and his powerful need for revenge drives him to seek the most violent and permanent solution possible. This is rather ironic considering his evident distaste for the course of action he's chosen and also the fact that he becomes physically sick on seeing Visser's photographs. Dan Hedaya portrays Marty's complex mixture of emotions very convincingly in a performance which contributes strongly to the success of the film.

The stand out performance of the movie is provided by M.Emmet-Walsh who, as the sly, sweaty and totally unscrupulous private detective exudes a brand of wickedness which conveys forcibly the thoroughly despicable nature of his character. His complete lack of morality also makes him very comfortable in his own skin and this quality together with his often jovial demeanour make him particularly disturbing and fascinating. Emmet-Walsh's ability to capture the whole range of this villain's characteristics is extremely impressive and compelling.

Considering its low budget and the Coen Brothers' lack of experience at the time when the film was made, "Blood Simple" is an extremely enjoyable and good quality movie.

The Assumptions

[jeeap · 7/10 · 29 June 2018]

We're dealing with other persons assuming something. It's always the case but sometimes it drops beyond even our low standards. Than we have a complete mess. This story is a perfect example of it. The characters don't talk much to each other, they study the environment instead to find out what they want to know. They think it's more trustworthy. And then they make conclusions based on what they found. Indeed, this is a sad story of misunderstanding and mistrusting. Excellently told with a lot of art-cinema stuff.

What the hell was that?

[fatihgenc-71749 · 5/10 · 1 November 2019]

I am such a fan of the work of the Coen brothers and I thought I have to watch their very first movie. Everything sounded great. The plot, the actors even the title. I expected fun for the next 90 minutes. All I got was DISAPPOINTMENT. I am not that kind of a Person who gets bored easily but I had to fast forward the last 30 minutes because I could not handle it anymore. The plot made absolutely no sense to me. I'm sorry I feel this way.

Effective noir thrills

[cardsrock · 8/10 · 23 November 2020]

The Coen brothers' debut feature is a sign of what was to come in their careers. Smart uses of tension, outlandish situations, and camerawork are on full display here and set the tone for their unique style. The story is pretty simple, but it's the viewer's perspective of all the misunderstandings between characters that make this film interesting to watch. Great suspense makes Blood Simple a worthy watch and debut for the Coens.

amazing debut

[ginger_sonny · 31 August 2004]

The Coen brothers' magnificent feature film debut

Scumbag private eye Walsh plans the perfect crime when he's hired by a Texan bar owner to kill his wife (McDormand) and her lover (Getz). But the ploy to fool his employer with mocked up photographic evidence goes spectacularly awry when his shortcut is discovered, and Walsh is forced to knock off the adulterous couple after all.

Jet-black, wickedly funny and driven by an ingenious plot, the film holds all the clues to the Coens' peerless future, including bizarre deaths, itching paranoia and Walsh's delicious performance of sweat-stained villainy.

Coens' best film.

[raimund-berger · 9/10 · 31 May 2020]

Saw this in cinema plenty of years ago and couldn't believe how much fun it was. Twisting the noir genre with abandon, while you never know which turn it's going to take, dead serious or full on parody, til the very end. All the misunderstandings. Him standing in the middle of a field almost next to a farm house after having taken care of the body (mind you, not quite just a body). Thinking it was her who shot her husband (due to the gun), while she insists she hadn't done "anything funny." The phone call from Marty, and Ray's reaction. How the talk never leads anywhere (Lynch style). Then the music. Plus many, many glorious shots (truck passing by a minute just after).

Back then when I saw it, if you got a taste for it and appreciated the film making context, this was the most lovable, profoundly engaging and beautifully crafted piece. Still is, decades later.

A stylish film noir

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 7/10 · 11 December 2005]

The basic fact (a Texan bar-owner is betrayed by the private detective he hires to murder his faithless wife and her lover) is transformed by an imaginatively tortuous script into a clever, almost farcical study of humans forever misinterpreting each other's actions…

While the audience understands what is happening, the characters, their perceptions distorted by suspicion, fear and jealousy, strike in the dark and destroy friends, enemies and themselves… Murder, too, is a dirty, protracted business – one character is even buried alive – just as, in the Coens' irredeemably seedy Texas, the corrupt private eye (marvelously played by M. Emmett Walsh) sweats continuously

hilarious. astounding.

[onepotato2 · 9/10 · 6 January 2003]

Ugh. So much griping about what this movie isn't! "It's not a good thriller" "It's not suspenseful" "I like Fargo better" Bring your genre recognition and creative constraints to movies whose scripts never passed through a working brain. There are plenty to choose from.

Thriller? mystery? love triangle..? Who cares? This is simply a good film. I don't care if I can tell you what genre it is. If you like passive viewing this isn't for you. When you kvetch about B.S., all it does is indicate you were a late-comer to the Coens and saw them in non-chronological order after seeing Fargo. I'm so sorry for you.

Boring performances? Not in my opinion. I'm relieved (delighted!) that it's not an "actors" movie with people method-ing up the plot. And I certainly don't watch it to vicariously feel anyones emotions. Pricey & needy name actors would have ruined this movie. (As in Ladykillers) Who cares if they're subdued? It's not about the perfs, it's about the thought you as a viewer bring to it. This is a "post-Method" movie and it's extremely clever and deep.

Plot too intricate? It's less complex than it appears, and much easier to understand than some piece of convoluted tripe like Mission Impossible. SPOILER: The double-cross begins in mid-conversation in M. Emmett Walsh's VW bug.

For me, the pacing is perfect. Any ten minutes of this movie is more thoughtful than plenty of other movies with frantic activity trying to hide their facile nature (Minority Report, O Brother, etc. etc. ad nauseum.) And I do not enjoy any of the fussy, formulaic follow-ups the Coens made after this.

The joy of this movie is watching characters 'complete the picture' incorrectly, and then take action in a way that will be painfully consistent with their assumptions. The movie paints the world as a chilly machine with parts set in motion by human idiocy, and implicates a God indifferent to all manner of human suffering. All of which should sound familiar to anyone who's read Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger.

The spare conceits of this movie are perfectly scaled. It has a minimalist score with some very nice music cues; and three or four sweet camera tricks so quietly inserted that you might miss them, which make me smile.

"I ain't done nothing funny."

[ackstasis · 6/10 · 14 September 2007]

I can't quite place my finger on why I didn't like this film. 'Blood Simple' was the first feature from acclaimed brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, and yet it had a certain roughness that I couldn't connect with. I suppose that the simplest way to explain my feelings would be as follows: 'Blood Simple' is an ultra-low-budget amateur film, and it feels exactly like one. This needn't necessarily be a negative; if a film acknowledges its low-budget roots, it can use this fact to great advantage. My problem with the Coen's film is that it simply looked cheaply-made, and that detracted massively from a work that was clearly trying to evoke the spirit of some of the smoothly-made, classic film noirs of the 1940s and 50s.

Ordinarily, I might be tempted to put the film's "visual cheapness" down to the directors' ultra low-budget, but, in this case, we already know that the Coens would later becoming masters of creating something from nothing. For example, working on a comparatively low budget (though, admittedly, not as low as this one), they would go on to produce 'Miller's Crossing,' among the most handsome motion pictures of the 1990s. 'Blood Simple,' conversely, just looks uncertain, crudely-constructed and, ultimately, like the work of amateurs. The plot of the film is something that we've already seen dozens of times, but I suspect that this was the Coens' intention. Like many of their films, they were not attempting anything strikingly original, but rather chose to reproduce the spirit of many of the classic film noirs, and to sprinkle it with their own unique brand of twisted black humour. I've certainly enjoyed many of their similar later films, but this one, I thought, missed the mark.

The cast is very small, with most of the film focusing almost exclusively on four characters. This helps create a sense of intimacy, though it also acts as another cold reminder of the minuscule budget on which they must have been working. The acting itself is a bit variable: I wasn't overly fond of John Getz as Ray, but his arch enemy, Julian Marty, is played with genuinely repulsive sliminess by Dan Hedaya. I suppose that Frances McDormand was pretty good as Abby – Marty's wife and Ray's lover – but the sheer stupidity of her character often frustrated me, coupled with her seemingly constant nervousness and feigned innocence. However, on the other end of the scale, M. Emmet Walsh is a complete revelation as Loren Visser, the nasty, crude cowboy private investigator whom Marty hires to murder his adulterous wife and her lover. As you can guess, things don't quite go to plan.

As a debut film, I have to acknowledge that 'Blood Simple' was an ambitious undertaking, even if it wasn't, in my view, wholly successful. The story is exciting enough, but riddled with stupid moments, the most glaring example being a dead man – who has been motionless with a copiously-bleeding gunshot wound for about an hour – suddenly coming to life and finding the energy to start crawling down the road. I'm all for unlikely scenarios, but this was a bit too outlandish for me to be able to suspend disbelief. However, 'Blood Simple's' greatest success lies in the fact that it gave two talented filmmakers – as well as cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who made his major debut here – the experience they needed to work towards greater things. In any case, for another noir from the minds of the Coen brothers, look towards 'The Man Who Wasn't There (2001),' which I absolutely loved.

The Coens Debut - My Favourite!

[Eumenides_0 · 10/10 · 1 April 2005]

There is something about a good crime movie that brings to light the worst and most perverse traits of Mankind, that really forces the characters to open themselves to the viewer and show them the complexity of the human mind and spirit… the stuff of great drama! 'Blood Simple' was the Coens' outstanding debut; as far as I'm concerned, it remains their best movie after 'Barton Fink' — their undisputed masterpiece! — and I personally regard it higher than 'Fargo.' It is one of my favourite movies, second only to 'Chinatown,' I'm constantly watching it. Ironically, I originally disliked it the first time I saw it — three years ago? — because I found it very slow-paced (which is only a fault in the viewer and never in the movie) and boring; today I know I was wrong… 'Blood Simple' is easily one of the most thrilling and fast-paced movies ever made with a plot that is as simple as it is gripping!

This movie is built on the narrative device of 'dramatic irony,' which Alfred Hitchcock used a lot in his movies to create and maintain suspense: withholding vital information from the characters but allowing the viewer to always know what's going on, thus trapping the viewer on his powerlessness to change what he knows is about to happen to characters dear to him. For the whole 90 minutes of 'Blood Simple' only the viewer ever has the whole picture in his mind; the characters, they have small fragments of a disjointed, mystery puzzle that leaves clueless in their own personal worlds, unable to trust anyone. This lack of harmony results in all sorts of misunderstandings and situations that will eventually result in tragedy for the four main characters.

On the surface, the movie is very simple: Julian Marty (impeccably played by Dan Hedaya) hires private investigator Loren Visser (Emmet Waslh gives the finest performance in the movie as an unlikely and violent villain) to find out with his wife, Abby (the brilliant Frances McDormand in one of her earliest performances) is sleeping with; and this happens to be Ray (John Getz, whom I didn't know until this movie, but was fascinated with his performance) after some interesting incidents, Marty pays Visser to kill the couple… and this is when 'Blood Simple' becomes a distinctive Coen movie. I mean, the first 27 minutes are already brilliant and unique with a rare, raw energy to it. But the last 60 minutes are just outstandingly good! The dialogue is acid, witty, economical; the editing is tight, it's wonderful how one scene seamlessly transits into another; the cinematography, built on dimly-lit interior sets, shadowy spaces, neon lights and other artificial light, is beautiful and unsettling in the way it creates a dark atmosphere. And the sound, with crackling sounds everywhere, helps a lot too!

In 90 minutes, the Coens also breathe life into four distinct characters: they're complex, bigger than life, built on just a few strokes of good lines that immediately define them. Marty is obsessive in the way he stalks his wife, domineering, and just disgusting in the way he looks at and treats women: one has the feeling he's this macho cowboy, with his boots, open shirt showing his hairy chest and oily hair, to whom women are just objects. Ray and Abby are a lovely couple, and although she remains this innocent, naïve character until the end, Ray is a tortured man on the inside, doing horrible things for love and slowly growing into paranoia and mistrust.

But Visser, he's the cherry on the top. M. Emmet Walsh just plays this vicious human being to a T! He's completely remorseless, amoral, lacking whatever values a normal person would behave. He's greedy, untrustworthy, ruthless, cowardly too, and will do anything for money — he outdoes Carl's and Gaer's inhumanity in 'Fargo;' in many ways, he was the Coens' warm-up for these two memorable hoods, but in many ways he was also a better creation. The way Visser is driven to accomplish his goal and the total callousness of his methods just make him one of the finest villains in modern cinema.

For such a short movie, 'Blood Simple' is filled with memorable, even disturbing scenes. There's so much tension in the air when Ray is burying Marty alive in a desolate field, you could cut it with a knife! That's probably the scene that stuck most on my mind when I saw this movie. It gives Ray whole new layer of complexity, and it pays off with one of chilliest lines in a movie ever! However, nothing tops the last ten minutes of the movie, the climax per se, the claustrophobic confrontation between Abby and Visser: it's just fascinating in the way it's handled. For one thing, the Coens show a lot of creativity in a scene that basically takes place inside one single apartment where Abby is locked with Visser; the fact she never saw Visser before and the fact she thinks it's Marty all along make it even chillier!

If we want to define this movie's premise, it could be something like 'mistrust leads to ruin,' since it is Abby and Ray's lack of mutual trust that ruins their relationship. 'Blood Simple' is a beautiful movie full of some of the best human horror I have ever seen… ambiguous characters doing monstrous things, and yet they ring ever so true with real life. It's a bold movie that says a lot about the darkest side of human nature in the middle of a great conflict, and it makes for one of the most outstanding dramatic experiences I have ever gone through.

Overhyped but very good for 47 minutes, then it descends to chaos

[godsnames · 7/10 · 28 June 2020]

All in all, the movie's cinematography is superb. The camerawork is outstanding. The angels, perspectives, the film's noir style lights an shadows takes the breath away. It's the story that baffles me. From the the 47th minute it descends to stupidity (very annoyingly I must add), and then to total chaos. In the end one may see what was it all about but even 'her' cannot be sure. Very disturbing.

An ageless masterpiece, 85, Coen style, with it's bloody moments

[videorama-759-859391 · 10/10 · 20 March 2014]

In my opinion this is still the Coen brothers piece of resistance, or words to that effect. It still stands superior to everything else they've done, where I'm sure a lot of other people would disagree, or just haven't seen one this too. They f..kin should. The score of performances are great, particularly M Emmett Walsh, though I liked Hedaya's anger too. He's a jealous, and mentally unstable bar owner, who suspects his wife (Francis Mcdormand) excellent as she always is, is getting it on with younger employer (John Getz) an actor's 80's surprise, of versatility when seeing him in other films. He's hired corrupt and tubby PI, (Dan Visser Walsh, in a real evil performance of menace, images of him, will be locked in your mind after) to do some snooping around, and he comes up trumps kind of taunting Hedaya with the negatives. Now Hedaya's anger is beyond the point of sanity, where he pays a very generous sum to Walsh to take the two out. It's here when the thriller really takes it's turns and becomes fun, but believable too, after Walsh double crosses Hedaya. That's what's cool about it. The less I say now, the better. My only point I want to get across to you Coen fans out there, if you haven't seen their baby yet, that still holds the test of time, you must. It's a stylish film noir thriller, that moves at an easing pace, which is necessary and comes off all so brilliantly. And too there's the ending that shows another sense of style.

interesting but too convoluted a plot

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 7 January 2006]

Stylistically speaking, this was a good movie--with a nice somber mood, excellent acting (except for M. Emmett Walsh--who just seemed too over the top). However, there were just too many plot devices that just didn't make a lot of sense--in other words, plot twists that were interesting but were too unrealistic to make the movie more engaging. Some examples: 1. Dan Hedaya is shot in the chest and he appears dead. He's been bleeding out for what appears to be at least a couple hours. He is found by the male lead and is dragged off to a rural spot to be buried. However, just before he is buried, he starts crawling away with amazing speed and power for a man who appears to have lost at least a gallon of blood AND who has been untreated for quite some time.

2. Walsh kills Hedaya. Fine--this double-cross makes sense. But, to then try to kill the wife and her lover doesn't make that much sense--especially when this scruffy guy suddenly shows that he is an excellent marksman! Then, after snuffing the lover, the ending is exciting but way too unbelievable for words.

SO, my review is an anomaly. Most reviewers liked it a lot. I just thought it was okay and the Coens have done much better films--such as their comedies. And, for a drama, I think Miller's Crossing is a MUCH better film.

Poor execution

[StuartNewman10000 · 5/10 · 26 May 2021]

Dog slow and loses its way, with some unnecessary detracting scenes and completely flat performances from actors capable of much more. All the ingredients were there but half baked.