Blood Simple is top-tier Coen Brothers on HBO Max

From the safe: As the streaming area continues to grow, more and more extensive studio catalogs are becoming available. This includes lost and forgotten jewels, bad-it-good duds, and just plain weird bits of film history. And you probably won’t find them waiting for streamers to put them in front of you. In from the safe Android authority aims to save these titles from the algorithm graveyard and help you get more out of your streaming subscriptions.

Blood Simple is one of the best things to see on HBO Max and the Criterion Channel right now. The extensive back catalog and prestige outlet of Warner Media’s own streamer include the Coen Brothers’ first feature as part of your standard subscriptions, and it’s well worth checking out.

This story of conjugal duplicity, bloody vengeance, and minor criminal incapacity started the filmmaking duo’s careers with an all-out bang. It’s a fascinating part of her oeuvre and a beautiful independent indie thriller.

If you’ve never seen it before, do yourself a favor and watch Blood Simple ASAP on HBO Max or Criterion.

In their first feature film, Joel and Ethan Coen tell a relatively simple story of jealousy and revenge. When small-town bar owner Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) finds out that his young wife Abby (Frances McDormand) is cheating on him with his employee Ray (John Getz), he hires a local PI to kill the two lovers.

What should be an easy hit quickly gets out of hand in the sweaty Texas city. In this neo noir crime thriller, nobody trusts anyone, and neither should they. The sleazy private cock Lorren Visser (M. Emmett Walsh) has no real code. “If the pay is right and legal, I’ll do it” becomes “Well, if the pay is right, I’ll do it” without much resistance.

You can already spot the Coen’s incredible eye for detail and efficient storytelling. The film comes in just under 95 minutes without wasting a moment. Your camera stays exactly where it is needed: on the trendy high-tops of a bartender, on a growing pool of blood, on fish that fester for days, on rays of light seeping through bullet holes.

Every artistic decision has a punch and feels measured, from the recurring use of The Four Tops’ “It’s the Same Old Song,” to the harrowing and harsh sound of a mosquito light that kills, to the haunting scores of the frequent Coens- Collaborator Carter Burwell. (It was Burwell’s first full score, and he went on to set numerous other major films to music, earning two Oscar nominations in the process.)

cashbox: Everything you can see on HBO Max

Blood Simple didn’t hit big at the box office, but it’s no surprise it was a critical hit and introduced two visionary filmmakers to the world. Years later, it received the Criterion Collection in recognition of its status as a contemporary classic.

Pitch black humor at its best

Virtually every Coen Brothers film is a comedy. Even films like Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and A Serious Man find humor in tragedy, discomfort, violence, everyday and horror.

In moments when characters just need a break, things keep getting worse. We comfortably and confidently watch tragicomic normal people make the same mistakes we would likely make in their shoes. Or are simply exposed to bad luck. What if your car didn’t start after burying a body in a farm field? It’s hard not to laugh when Ray’s ignition stutters and threatens to let him down.

The Coens are great for repetitive things that get funnier over time. An angry character storming off in a car just to have to turn around at top speed when he hits a dead end is a funny gag in and of itself. It’s even funnier if you repeat it a few scenes later.

That weird, mean streak runs through the film and it’s deeply satisfying. Like a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy, Blood Simple gives us all the information and keeps its players in the sweaty, overheated darkness.

A harbinger of more great films to come

You don’t have to squint too much to see Blood Simple as a kind of blueprint for later Coen brothers’ films.

It certainly has a roughness that they’ve smoothed out over the years. But it also clearly plays in the same sandbox as other Coens titles. The clumsy underhandedness of Fargo and No Country for Old Men, the sweaty paranoia of Barton Fink, the modern interpretation of the noir mystery by The Big Lebowski, the mythologized south of O, Brother, Where Art Thou? – it’s all here.

Blood Simple also introduced the world to Frances McDormand, who later starred in numerous Coen films, won four Academy Awards, and became one of the greatest actresses of her generation.

As Abby, the then 27-year-old McDormand is amazingly good. Despite her young age, she wears a knowing world weariness that makes Abby’s plight so difficult. We want the men in their lives to be right, and we hate them for failing so spectacularly.

There’s no shortage of great Coen Brothers material. But it’s amazing to see how they cement creative partnerships and establish a signature style from the start. They’re already burning in Blood Simple.