Review of Blood Simple (1985) by Khan M — 23 May 2009

BLOOD SIMPLE shows just how accomplished the Coens were right out of the gate. To think of this as a "first film" is stunning. The style, the artwork, the cinematography, the performances, the script, everything is so utterly top-notch that you cannot believe that this came from anyone other than a grizzled veteran. It's amazing to see how many Coen trademarks were already in place from the very beginning: Novelistic speech patterns, seedy hitmen, scuzzy criminal atmosphere, blood and gore, and a plot that not only does what you aren't expecting, but practically dares you to be fooled by the next twist of the script page.

This is quite possibly the closest the Coens have come thus far to making a true horror film. The genre was booming big in the 1980s, so it is perhaps understandable that the Coens would want to get a film off the ground by adhering to a popular genre. But, this being the Coens, there truly is no "genre". There is copious amounts of glorious blood and tasty gore, complete with a body that won't die, but in a halfway point between black comedy and true insanity. Like the best of their films, they allow an air of creepiness to sink into the movie, suffocating everything...even when you blow out a lung laughing.

The acting is incredible, straight across the board. Movies like this make you remember how underrated actors like Dan Hedaya and M. Emmet Walsh really are. Hedaya is one of those character actors with a perfect face to be cast as thugs or racist cops, except for one time when he turned in a pitch-perfect performance as Richard Nixon in the underrated DICK. And Walsh...well...Roger Ebert created his "Stanton-Walsh Rule", which states that no film starring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh could ever be truly awful, for a reason.

My mind is just completely awed by this film. Certain images are going to haunt me for a long time, for their horrific beauty. The undead body bouncing in the night. The knife in the hand. The holes in the wall. The blood in the sink. The birds flying over the car. Every image in this movie deserves to be salivated over.

I am going to watch this movie many many many more times. I cannot believe it took me nearly twenty-two years to see it.