What did you watch? The debut film by the Coen brothers, Blood Simple.

OMG, was it filled to the brim with quirky characters and memorable weird lines? No. There’s like 5 people in this movie and not a lot of talking.

Blood Simple starts off as a love story. Abby is married to Marty, it’s a bad marriage, so she has an affair with Marty’s employee Ray. Marty hires a private detective, Loren, to follow them and get photographic proof of the affair. Marty attacks Abby in Ray’s home but Abby fights back. Embarrassed, Marty hires Loren to kill Abby & Ray.

Loren pulls a fast one on everyone. He sneaks into Ray’s home and takes a gun from Abby’s purse. From there, he gives doctored photos to Marty to show that the two were shot in bed. Marty pays Loren cash, and then Loren SHOOTS Marty with Abby’s gun, and leaves behind the gun.

Ray stumbles on Marty’s body and also Abby’s gun. He figures Abby killed Marty, and embarks on a quest to bury Marty. Even in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere, a lot of things can go wrong when trying to get rid of a body, and there’s no way Ray can cover his tracks and get rid of the evidence, while not understanding why Abby doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Meanwhile, Loren realizes he left behind something else at Ray’s, and has to try the couple for realz.

It goes places, despite its slow and moody place. The tension comes from whether or not Ray has covered ANY base in getting rid of Marty, not realizing it’s Loren who is still on his tail to cover his own bases.

Some of the end reminds me of the Raimi/Coen movie Crimewave, which we covered here many moons ago, where one of the “exterminators” terrifies the wife of one of their victims, albeit not as comically. Even when Abby has Loren trapped, she seems to not be able to escape him.

It’s a bit of a neo-noir, and you might be scratching your head on what the moral might be other than someone fighting for their life in the last act. It’s also the beginning of an amazing film career for Joel and Ethan Coen, along with cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who would go on to make live action Addams Family movies and Men In Black. Coen movies are all over the place in tone, this one is pretty basic in comparison, but still very well done and effective. Very much recommended.

You’ll recognize Marty from Cheers: he’s played by Dan Hedaya, aka Carla’s sleazy ex-husband Nick Tortelli.