15 Best Movie Thrillers From The 1980s
3. Blood Simple
The Coen brothers have proven themselves capable of taking on just about every genre there is, but if you had to define the classic Coen style, it’s a fast paced thriller in which bad decisions pile up until chaos reigns. Blood Simple, their debut, is perhaps the purest distillation of this ethos, a nasty, grubby, exciting neo-noir.
A tale of infidelity and murder, Blood Simple sees a jealous husband hire a detective to spy on his cheating wife and her lover. When the sleuth goes into business for himself, the bullets start flying. With a cast this small (there are four main actors only) it would be an exaggeration to say that the bodies pile up, but it certainly gets plenty violent.
Later Coen films, even the dark ones, tend to utilise plenty of humour, but Blood Simple is a far scuzzier affair. Every character is either on the take or ready to be taken, a schemer or a sap.
The Coens made their name with this low budget masterpiece, and while their ambition would grow, Blood Simple perfectly encapsulates what they bring to the big screen. It’s a fully formed debut.