Blood Simple

Impalement. Infidelity. Premature burial. Gunplay. Double crosses. Corpse-disposal snags. Filmmakers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen subvert and then melt these horror and film noir elements into a deadpan gothic thriller best described as the steamy, hardboiled fiction of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain filtered through two film-school brats. This “digitally swabbed” director’s cut of their 1985 lurid nighmare evolves into a grisly April Fool’s joke as a sleazeball gumshoe (M. Emmet Walsh) tries to milk big bucks from a lust triangle involving a Texas saloon owner (Dan Hedaya), his wayward wife (Frances McDormand) and a not-too-bright bartender (John Getz).