This Coen Brothers' Movie Is the Closest They've Ever Come to Horror

Blood Simple begins with stark photography of remote Texan locales. Moments later, some quasi-philosophical narration enters with a disembodied voice opining that everyone is ultimately out for themselves. The narrator, as the audience soon finds out, is none other than one of the film's central characters. It's a bleak but captivating opening to a seriously compelling film whose 90-or-so minutes whizz by like a tumbleweed caught in high winds. What an entrance. The Coen Brothers are now of course rightly considered among the very best American movie-makers, and their first motion picture sets the scene for what would quickly become a dauntingly strong filmography littered with dark comedies, gangster dramas, and pulpy crime thrillers — all at times sharing a unique, at-times jaded worldview. Their opening gambit, Blood Simple, remains a wholly unique beast and an indie 80s neo-noir thriller staple. Sure, parallels can be drawn between this one and the often frightening cat-and-mouse theatrics of the meditative No Country for Old Men for example, but Blood Simple is the closest the pair have ever come to flirting with the horror genre.