Blood Simple

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directed by the Coens, Blood Simple was proof that high-quality, commercially viable feature films could be made outside the corporate film studios.

Set in a nameless Texas town, this quirky drama starts with wide shots of deserted highways, lonely oil pumps, vast prairie and panhandle, its faceless rhythms and empty distances establishing a world far from the moral safety of human society. We soon find ourselves in a car moving down the highway in a torrential downpour that all but blocks any view of the oncoming roadway. Ray (John Getz) and Abby (Frances McDormand) speak nervously to each other in the car about the possibility that Abby's husband, Marty, might catch them. Suddenly they stop the car and realize that a junky VW bug has been following them. We cut to a roadside motel and see them between the sheets as lights from passing cars flash shadows around the little room.

Cut to a desktop with cowboy-booted feet in the middle and a folder of pictures thrown down beside them. "Thought you might like these," gloats the sleazy, devious, uneven voice of Loren Visser, the misanthropic investigator played with white-trash relish by M. Emmet