Blood Simple - The Directors Cut

Blood Simple won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. It also launched the careers of the Coen Brothers, who went from strength to strength since. This newly released Director’s Cut is three minutes shorter as the original theatrical release – resulting in tighter editing.

The movie is a witty and clever neo-noir story set in small town America. We know from numerous other films (in particular David Lynch), that small town America more often than not makes for effective murder stories, and it’s no different here.
Double-cross and murder play as much a part in Blood Simple as do the four key players, led by the always excellent Frances Mc Dormand as Abby. Although married to Texan bar owner Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), she has a passionate love affair with Ray (John Getz), one of Marty’s employees.
When Marty gets wind of what his unfaithful wife is up to, he hires Loren Visser (M. Emmett Walsh), a private eye with little scruples. Visser’s assignment is to spy on Abby and Ray to secure hardcore evidence. Indeed, he secretly takes photos of the two lovebirds as they are at it in a local motel.

The next day, Marty makes a threatening phone call to them and lets them know he’s aware of their affair. Soon after, Ray has an argument with Marty and walks out on his job. Furious and cuckolded, Marty hires Visser again, but this time he wants his cheating wife and her lover killed.

Obviously, Marty has never read any ‘Philip Marlowe’ detective stories, or he would be familiar with the quote, “There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself.” There’s a hint in this quote as to what happens next in the film…

Visser breaks into Ray’s home, steals Abby’s gun and takes photos of the sleeping couple through the bedroom window. Somehow, they must have forgotten to draw the curtains. Or maybe it was the scriptwriter.
After having tempered with the pics to make it look like murder, Visser collects his not to be sniffed at fee from Marty but, in an unexpected twist, then shoots him with Abby’s gun - leaving it at the scene to frame her for the murder of her husband.
That same evening, Ray returns to the bar, only to find Marty murdered and Abby’s gun next to the corpse. He decides to cover for her and get rid of the body, but the body turns out to be not quite so dead after all. Ray drives to a remote spot, digs a hole in the ground and buries Marty alive.
It’s from then on that things truly spin out of control, and the Coen Brothers keep us guessing to the last minute whether anyone will get out of this mess alive.

The film's title derives from the ‘Dashiell Hammett’ novel Red Harvest, in which ‘blood simple’ is a term to describe the confused and anxious mindset of people after a prolonged immersion in violent situations.
It makes perfect sense when applied to this movie.

With a soundtrack by Carter Burwell, Blood Simple is an arthouse classic, not least thanks to the cinematography by Barry Sonnenfeld (Men In Black, Get Shorty) for whom Blood Simple was the first major film.

The DVD has the ‘Trailer’ as bonus feature.