Yeah, That’s Kind of a Horror Movie: Blood Simple

In 1992, horror novelists John Skipp and Craig Spector wrote an article called “Death’s Rich Pageantry, or Skipp and Spector’s Handy-Dandy Splatterpunk Guide to the Horrors of Non-horror Film,” published in the book, Cut! Horror Writers on Horror Film. In it, they put forth the hypothesis that “Horror is the engine that powers every movie you ever loved.” Essentially, their point is about the oddity of horror even being classified as a genre in and of itself (horror being an emotion, and not a set of particular trappings or narrative devices); they argue that, while only those narratives which put their worst-case-scenarios front-and-center are widely classified as “horror,” all drama is about conflict, and relies on the possibility of some dark, horrifying outcome. Their primary example is Amadeus, but they list hundreds of other movies from a variety of genres that are, at heart, driven by horrific suggestions and inclinations.

In this series of articles, I’m going to rely on Skipp and Spector’s premise, and look at the ways that a number of films from other genres can be viewed in terms of horror.

Previous in this series: Fight Club

Blood Simple (1984)

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen (uncredited)

Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Starring: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh

Even when the Cohen Brothers make comedies, they rarely stray too far from themes of violence, nightmares, paranoia and angst (see, for example, Raising Arizona [1987] and The Big Lebowski [1998]). It’s no surprise, therefore, that these elements are so much at the forefront of their thriller and noir pictures, and that tendency traces all the way back to their first movie, Blood Simple (1984). The title, taken from a passage in Dashiell Hammett’s novel Red Harvest (1929), describes the panicked, irrational and dangerous mindset occupied by those caught up in prolonged violent situations, and most of the movie is probably best summarized as a prolonged violent situation.

A mind that turns forever to the ugliest possibilities

Events are set into motion when Texas bar owner Julian Marty’s (Dan Hedaya) suspicions about his wife Abby (Frances McDormand) cheating on him become self-fulfilling prophecy, as his paranoid, controlling behavior drives her to the arms of one of his bartenders, Ray (John Getz). Abby and Ray’s tryst is no secret, though, because Marty has hired sleazy P.I. Loren Visser (a drawling, grotesque performance from M. Emmet Walsh) to keep tabs on Abby, and Visser provides Marty with photographs of the pair in the act. The unstable, enraged Marty then pushes the envelope as far as it will go by paying Visser to kill Abby and Ray.

Marty is prone to fatal mistakes, and the biggest one he makes is putting any faith in a man who will agree to kill for money. Visser has plans of his own.

Oppressive atmosphere

The heat and humidity are a palpable source of oppression on the sweat-drenched (and sometimes blood-drenched) cast of Blood Simple. It’s as if the literal atmosphere surrounding the characters adds to their stress and paranoia. And the darkness in which most of the story unfolds is allowed to occupy so much space in the frame that even in an open field nobody seems to have any room to move, anyplace to escape to.

Oppressive darkness

Nobody trusts anyone; alliances are made only out of desperation; there is no peace to be found, even in sleep, which is invaded by nightmares. When the killing begins, everyone seems to be in a state of delirium, jumping to false conclusions about who is guilty and what the motivations might be. Sometimes the imperiled Abby and Ray – their tenuous trust broken almost from the beginning, but unable to separate from one another – aren’t even sure who is alive and who is dead (at times, viewers are allowed to suspect an almost slasher-style resilience among the villains, though Blood Simple never veers beyond the realm of the plausible).

It all ends up with one character, trapped in a barren apartment, desperately trying to fight off an unseen, unyielding assailant (again, very much in the tradition of the slasher movie). Things have become so chaotic that neither the hunter nor the prey still entirely understands what is going on; violence is now perpetuating violence; this whole little world has gone blood simple.

Abby is resilient in the midst of her living nightmare

Marty and Visser are both monsters, in their own ways. Marty’s paranoia and narcissism make him toxic to anyone with whom he comes into contact, and fuel his anger and his hatred; he is manipulative, and he sees the ugliness in himself projected onto everyone he encounters. Visser, meanwhile, is cold, self-interested, willing and able to kill without malice, without remorse, without any thoughts beyond survival and profit. Each man’s presence breeds ugliness in its own image, and together they make a world in which there can be no joy, no love, no trust, only violence, suspicion, and repulsion.

Prior to working on Blood Simple, Joel Coen had served as an assistant editor on Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead (1981); the Coens had gotten to know Raimi and his team (they would join with Raimi in scripting his dark comedy Crimewave [1985]), and Raimi served as an uncredited consultant on Blood Simple, as well as providing the use of his iconic car (“The Classic”). Barry Sonnenfeld, cinematographer on the Coens’ first three films, has openly acknowledged the influence of Raimi’s visual style on these pictures. Mixing the fevered insanity of Raimi’s Evil Dead camerawork with the low key, atmospheric lighting of classic film noir, and emphasizing tense close-ups and unexpected, jarring cuts, the Coens and Sonnenfeld created a look and feel for Blood Simple that is unrelenting in its drive to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, always aware that horror lurks just around the next turn of the plot, and just behind the characters’ eyes.

Are these faces you would trust?

As with the last in this series, thanks to my wife, Jennifer Cooper, for her work on the featured image!

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