it might surprise some to know that joel and ethan coen , who have brought such unabated lunacy to our movie screens as " raising arizona " and " the hudsucker proxy , " made their feature film debut with " blood simple , " a grim and often gruesome tale of revenge , murder , and literally fatal misconceptions in rural texas .
it bears some resemblance , story - wise , to the coens ' recent " fargo , " but even the darkly satirical humor and the enjoyably quirky characterizations that characterized that film are scarce here ; " blood simple " is pretty much cold and brutal from beginning to end .
the premise of " blood simple " is really just a slight variation on the standard love - triangle / revenge scheme : sleazy bar owner julian marty ( dan hedaya ) hires a shifty private detective ( m . emmet walsh ) to kill his wife abby ( frances mcdormand ) and her illicit lover ray ( john getz ) .
things start to go haywire when walsh decides instead to fake the murder with photographic trickery but , upon collecting the money , becomes uncertain as to whether or not marty is capable of keeping his mouth shut about the scheme .
to reveal any more details of the story would be to give away too much , but what ensues is a series of bloody ( and i do mean bloody ) confrontations , each triggered by one or more characters misunderstanding what is actually happening .
every act of violence or deception in this film makes sense when seen through the perpetrator 's eyes , but we , the audience , are made privy to the " big picture " and thus can recognize that each misdeed is somehow either unnecessary or directed at the wrong person .
this aspect of the story , along with the intense atmosphere of repulsion and brutality - one gets the sense that if guns and , in one case , shovels , were not available , some of these characters would claw each other to death - are the most effective components of the film .
the coens might have done well to title the film " fear and loathing in texas .
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some have labeled " blood simple as a modern - day noir , but , while i am not an expert on either genre , it seems more like a horror movie than anything else .
the coens seem much more interested in the plot twists and the atmosphere of confusion and paranoia than they do in the characters , and the final sequence is nothing more than a showdown between the one ( relatively ) innocent character and the only one of the murderers left alive .
that said , " blood simple " is a very good horror movie ; the fear and suspense here are genuine .
the coens also add plenty of quirky touches that nudge the weirdness meter upwards , such as when a character enters an empty room and accidentally steps on a gun , discharging it as it skitters across the floor , or when a murder attempt unfolds in a way such that abby mistakes her attacker for another character who has in fact been killed earlier in the film .
that said , " blood simple " is not exactly flawless .
for one thing , the motivations for the killings are still a little thin at times ; i can understand that the characters had tracks to cover ( or at least thought they did ) , but i found it a little hard to accept that all of them would so quickly resort to murder .
and although they at least didn ?
t have anyone get hacked to death with a knife , the coens also are n't quite immune to horror cliches ; they indulge in a prolonged dead - guy - seems - to - have - come - back - to - life - but - then - we - find - out - it's - only - a - dream scene that had me rolling my eyes .
the film also ends so quickly after the final confrontation that i found myself wondering if they had simply run out of film .
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blood simple " is not quite the masterpiece of neo - noir that many seem to think it is , but it 's a decent movie and it showcases the coens ' ability to handle suspense and violence in a visceral but non - exploitative manner .
i would firmly recommend it to all " coen - heads " as well as anyone looking for something original in a thriller .
Output: P