Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Blood Simple is a dark and bloody black comic thriller.  It's sick, it's twisted, its gory and it's a near masterpiece of low budget independent filmmaking.  This slightly re-edited 2000 version improves it slightly. A few minutes have been excised from the middle of the movie improving the pacing over the original.  But most probably won't notice the differences.  Of course since it was first made, a lot of the  ideas, and shots have been copied and expanded upon—so it won’t have the same kind of fresh out of the box feel it did back in  the 1980s.

There are no major spoilers.  Read on with confidence that nothing will be ruined.

 When Blood Simple was first released in 1984, very few people knew who Joel and Ethan Coen were.  They had written a few screenplays and worked with Sam Raimi on  Evil Dead and Crimewave.  After miniscule budgeted BLOOD won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 1985 it got a wider theatrical release and jump-started the careers of the Coen's.  They helped give new energy to the mini-genre of updated neo-noir which would later give us John Dahl's Red Rock West and Last Seduction.  Blood Simple however wasn't treading in this same territory of Body Heat… it was treading in the world of the real pulps, updated with some camp values, and style to burn.   Land of  the Ceiling Fans is what I affectionately called the film when I first left the theatre after seeing the film for the first time in 1984.  It even has a ceiling fan cam shot.  It could also be called the humid sweating film---even the walls perspire in this movie.

There are several memorable visual highpoints..  And I won't spoil them by pointing them out to you here.  Part of the sick humor comes from some of the camera movements and angles which are timed like Buster Keaton sight gags.  That's of course a real obvious mark of style over substance, and it doesn't hide the fact or apologize for being overly-stylized—just as it was back in the early Sam Raimi days.

In 2000 the Coen's got the opportunity to fine-tune their feature film ..  They fixed a couple of gaffe's, they added a song they didn't quite have the time and money to get the musical rights to when it was first released (the Four Tops  "I Can't Help Myself" now plays on the jukebox)   and they shortened the running-time by several minutes.   Since they then decided to add a not-to be-taken seriously introduction, Blood Simple stays within a few seconds of its original running time.  It's actually almost a minute less altogether making it perhaps the first director's cut of a film that gives you less !!!!  The Coen's do enjoy pulling people's legs every chance they get. And hey… a Director’s cut that SHORTER?  THAT’s  different.

 Blood Simple plays like an updated   James M. (Postman Always Rings Twice) Cain  novel.  A jealous husband (Dan  Hedaya) hires a sleazy private detective (M.Emmet Walsh)  to get proof his wife (Frances McDormand)  is cheating on him (the wife's lover is played by John Getz).  The husband then decides he wants to kill his wife  and her lover.   The detective seems interested in the job for 10 grand.   Things do not go as planned.  With almost excruciating detail, the plot  twists and turns in inventive ways that stretch credibility a bit, but are still easy to go along with.  The suspense builds to a very satisfying and memorable climax. 

There are some very entertaining performance from a  mostly stellar cast,  but it's the late great Hedaya,  Frances McDormand (Mr. Joel Coen) and M. Emmet Walsh who get the most screen time and highest marks.

 You'll be reminded quite a bit of  the Coen's Fargo (--the landscape here is a desolate area in Texas --though it was filmed in the Austin area) but BLOOD is not quite as slickly paced nor as well produced as Fargo is.  In many ways Blood Simple was a trial run and I like how its low budget led to some very creative innovations.  It also has an effective and satisfying ending, unlike many of the Coen's productions which really needed better, more satisfying conclusions (Hudsucker Proxy and even O Brother Where Art Thou for example and for some, The Big Lebowski).  

This stylish-ness combined with nearly all of the characters being unlike-able give  things a streak of coldness that allows the film-makers aloofness they translate into style over substance which seems to be in balance —because this sort of James Cain inspired dark noir is overly familiar to take seriously and back in '84 few films embraced style over substance to the extend the Coen's do (a few years later  everyone seemed to be imitating the idea however).  The Coen's are too hip for the room but that's really not their fault--though they recognize how they are perceived and make fun of their image when talking about and marketing their films.

Some of the clever style  is due to the inventive camera angles and movements employed by a first-time cinematographer named Barry Sonnenfeld.  Yes, THAT Barry Sonnenfeld, after working with the Coen's on Raising Arizona and Miller's Crossing, Sonnenfeld became a director and is known for The Addams Family, Get Shorty, Men in Black and (ouch) Wild Wild West.

The music  is from the once grossly under appreciated Carter Burwell whose handled the music for all of the Coen Brothers films.

Listen fast for the voice of Holly Hunter who'll play a much more memorable role in the Coen's Raising Arizona.

DVD STUFF

The film was meticulously restored in 2000 for its brief theatrical re-release and the picture quality is top notch.  One might notice some minor problems in a couple of the film's darkest sequences perhaps because of black levels, which were not re-done for the brief scenes.  There's a touch of grain in some scenes but it's a far better looking film than most very low budget 1.5 million-dollar films. 

Mostly its dialogue drives the film so a digital re-recording and re-mix of sound to create a 5.1 mix would be overkill.  The 2.0 stereo mix we get is clean, sounds very full, and the dialogue is crisp and clean.

It's a huge improvement over the previous VHS versions that were once available of this film.

Note: A region 2 Spanish Blood Simple disc was also released in 2001, that got excellent technical reviews and boasts a 5.1 Dolby soundtrack.  I can't vouch for claims that it's a better disc though.

DVD Extras
Not much.  Trailer, Commentary (see below), Cast and Crew Filmographies and Production Notes.


COMMENTARY TRACK:

The commentary is a dry put on.  A fictitious character pretends to be a ridiculously stuck up film-historian who doesn't know what he's talking about, and who doesn't really understand some of the film tricks and techniques he tries to explain.  It's a rather one-note kind of joke that doesn't sustain itself for the entire commentary but it's a clever idea and I enjoyed it for about 15 minutes and parts of it after that are pretty funny.

BOTTOM LINE:

If you're a fan of the Coen's, any of the cast, or in particular updated film noirs, you'd better buy yourself a copy for your collection as soon as possible.  Blood Simple looks great on this disc.   If  style of substance (even when done smart) bugs you  or you are squeamish (there’s definitely some gore here)—avoid this. 


Copyright© Christopher J. Jarmick 2012

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day