SYNOPSIS: This critically-acclaimed thriller set in rural Texas combines chilling suspense with offbeat humour to create an all-American version of the classic "film noir."

Abby (Frances McDorman) is cheating on her saloonkeeper husband, Marty (Dan Hedaya). The object of her affections is Ray (John Getz), one of Marty's bartenders. Marty hires Visser (M. Emmet Walsh), an unscrupulous detective, to kill them but Visser has other, more lucrative plans of his own. So begins a calculating round of double and triple crosses that build to a bloodcurdling, surprise-filled climax. It's an evil-minded masterpiece from the exciting filmmaking team of Joel and Ethan Coen.

In Blood Simple, when someone's gone... it's never for good!

NOTES: In 2001 there was a limited cinema release of a "Director's Cut" of Blood Simple which is now available on R1 DVD.

For the re-release of the movie in 2001 George Ives played a fictional film historian from fiction film restoration company, Forever Young. He reprised this role in for the 2005 release of The Big Lebowski Collector's Edition DVD. He has also played a lawyer for the Coens in both The Man Who Wasn't There and Intolerable Cruelty.

The Coen brothers gained the required finance for the movie by making a short "trailer" before the movie was in production, it "starred" Bruce Campell as Marty, the role later filled by Dan Hedaya.

Holly Hunter was originally chosen for the role of Abby, but she thought her roommate, Frances McDormand, was better suited and recommended her to Joel and Ethan. She, of course, got the gig and later went on to marry Joel.

When Marty meets Visser at the overlook to discuss the murders of Abby and Ray, Visser recounts a story about a friend of his who has two broken hands. The friend's name is, Creighton. An unusual forename for sure, yet one shared by Jon Polito's character in The Man Who Wasn't There- Creighton Tolliver, the pansy. A coincidence?