Blood Simple is set in rural Texas and opens on a dark and rainy night. Abby (Frances McDormand) and Ray (John Getz) are out and about, as Abby is having an affair with Ray. Abby's husband, Julian (Dan Hedaya), owns a bar and just happens to be Ray's employer. Julian suspects that Abby is cheating, so he hires sleazy private detective Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to investigate. Ray actually confronts Julian, but nothing comes of this. When Visser confirms that the affair is real (why didn't they use some sort of window covering?), Julian asks Visser to murder the couple. This sets off a series of twists and turns which show that no one can be trusted and that no one is safe.

Released in 1984, Blood Simple was the feature film debut for The Coen Brothers, who we now know as an Oscar-winning filmmaking team. But, back then, they were still green. The script has a lot going for it, as they were trying to make a modern American film noir. Once the pieces are in place (the cheating wife, the jealous husband, and the man caught in the middle), the movie presents us with some very good twists. Essentially, in the second half of the movie, we quickly learn that we can't trust any of the information which we were previously given, as the movie keeps folding on itself. Some of these are quite jarring, while others are clumsily. (The major twist involving Ray and Abby is handled way too non-chalantly and isn't as surprising as it should be.) These twists help us to get past the fact that the characters are a bit underwritten and Meurice (Samm-Art Williams) is introduced in a very effective manner and then never pans out.

If only they'd known more about pacing back then. I can only imagined that teenaged me liked Blood Simple because I'd never seen anything like it. (I wasn't into old movies, so I'd never seen any classic noir double-cross movies.) But, watching it today, I found the movie to be excruciatingly slow at times. Now, there's no doubt that this is a "slow burn" film, but there's a huge difference between suspense and nothing happening. The perfect example is the finale, which seems to go on forever. You could leave the room to make a sandwich and come back in and say, "He still hasn't gotten that knife?". The movie contains some nice surprising scenes, but many are wrecked by the use of long takes and silence. Yes, The Coens were trying to create a mood, but the last thing that a filmmaker should want is an audience yelling "Get one with it!".

Today, Blood Simple works more as a curiosity piece than an example of great filmmaking. Again the story is good and there are some nice shots, but the attempts to create a certain mood backfire at times. I guarantee that if The Coens were to remake Blood Simple today, it would be fantastic. As it stands, the movie provides some great twists and a look at two of America's most respected filmmakers cutting their teeth.

Blood Simple loves to control the jukebox on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc carries an AVC 1080pHD transfer which runs at an average of 38 Mbps. The image is sharp and clear for the most part, although we do get some notable grain at times. Being a film noir, the movie is dark and the black tones show no shimmering. The few brighter (not bright) colors glimpsed in the film look good. There are no defects from the source material. The frustrating thing about this transfer is that some scenes can be very grips, which others show grain an low detail. The Disc offers a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track which runs at 48 kHz and a constant 1.8 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sounds effects. It's rare that we get a lossless stereo track, but I'd rather have this than a fake 5.1 remix. The stereo effects are very good, and the track does a great job of moving audio between the front channels. When a car drives, we can track its progress as it moves from one side of the room to another. The haunting piano score comes through great here.

The Blood Simple Blu-ray Disc contains just two extras. We get an AUDIO COMMENTARY from Kenneth Loring of Forever Young Films. "Forever Young" is a fictional company created by The Coen Brothers which claims to have restored the movie. Kenneth Loring is, in fact, actor Jim Piddock, and this faux commentary contains several outlandish claims about the film's production. The only other extra is the THEATRICAL TRAILER for the film.