Just blood

Julian Marty, the owner of a bar in Texas , suspects his wife Abby of treason with Ray, one of the bartenders. He hires a private detective Loren for surveillance, and he finds a couple in bed at a local hotel. The next morning, Marty makes a menacing call to the motel, making it clear that she knows everything. And soon Lauren provides him with photographs taken at the motel.

The next day, Ray meets Marty at the bar. He quits and demands payment for two weeks of work, but Marty refuses and also advises not to trust Abby, saying that she is ready to sleep with anyone. Marty then tries to force Abby out of the house, but fails and breaks her finger. Then he again turns to Loren with a proposal to kill Ray and Abby for 10 thousand dollars. Lauren agrees and advises Marty to go to Corpus Christi for a while to create an alibi .

At night, Lauren sneaks into Ray's house and finds Abby's revolver with only three rounds and returns to the street. He walks around the house from the other side and sees through the window sleeping Abby and Ray. In the morning, Lauren meets with Marty to get paid. As evidence, he gives a photograph of Ray and Abby in blood, but asks Marty not to leave it to himself. But Marty does the opposite: taking money from his safe, he quietly puts Loren's picture there. After receiving the money, Lauren shoots Marty with Abby's weapons and throws him to the floor to avert suspicions. He takes the money and the envelope without a photograph, but forgets the lighter on the table, on which his name is engraved.

Soon after his departure, Ray comes into the bar, determined to get his money. He calls Marty, but he does not respond. Then Ray enters his office and accidentally steps on a revolver, which, having fired, rolls back several meters. Ray decides Marty killed Abby. He wants to go in search of money, but unexpectedly Moris comes into the bar - another bartender and his girlfriend Debra. Ray quickly locks Marty's office from the inside, erases traces of blood, takes away his weapon, and takes Marty's body to his car through another exit. But during the trip, Ray with horror understands that Marty is still alive, he falls out of the car and tries to crawl along the highway. Unable to finish Marty, Ray can only bury him alive, which he does.

At home, Lauren burns all the photographs with which he experimented, drawing blood. He opens the envelope and sees that there is no photo. Having become nervous, he wants to light a cigarette and realizes that there is no lighter. At this time, Ray returns to Abby and hints that he has covered his tracks and is not threatened by anything, but she, of course, does not understand what is at stake. A phone rings - this is Lauren ringing, but does not say anything into the receiver. Ray decides that Abby has another lover, and annoyed leaves, Abby decides that Marty is calling. Unaware of her husband’s death, she comes to the bar and sees Marty’s office plundered. She decides that Ray argued with Marty over the money and killed him, leaves. In fact, Lauren was in the bar again: he was trying to break into a safe with a photograph, but he was scared off by Abby. He also did not pick up the lighter.

Abby meets with Ray to explain, and he admits that he buried Marty alive and found Abby's weapon. He leaves the revolver with one cartridge for her and leaves. Abby comes to the bartender Maurice and says that Marty is killed, but he reassures her and cites an answering machine as evidence, where Marty accuses Maurice and Ray of stealing money from his safe. Ray comes to the bar and finds a photo of Lauren, then he realizes that Abby is innocent and goes to her house.

Abby returns from Maurice, and Ray asks her to turn off the light, because he noticed surveillance from the window. But Abby does not listen to Ray, and then Lauren from the roof of a neighboring house kills Ray. Abby puts out the lights and hides in the bathroom. Lauren enters the house and unsuccessfully tries to find his lighter in Ray's pockets. Then he enters the bathroom, but does not find Abby, she managed to get through the window to the next room. Lauren sticks his hand out of the window and raises the window of the next room, then Abby nails his hand with a knife to the windowsill. Enraged, Lauren shoots through the wall, but never hits, then he starts to hit the wall, hoping to break it. Abby is waiting for him at the exit of the bathroom with a revolver in her hands. Lauren finally smashes the wall and pulls the knife out of her hand. With him, he goes to the door, hoping to attack Abby, but she shoots first, right through the door. She still thinks it is Marty alive and screams that she is not afraid of him. Loren, lying on the floor in another room, bursts out laughing and promises that he will convey her words to Marty when he meets him in the next world.

• John Getz - Ray
• Francis McDormand - Abby
• M. Emmett Walsh - Private Detective Lauren Visser
• Dan Hedaya - Julian Marty
• Samm Art Williams - Maurice
• Debra Neumann - Debra

For the role of Abby, Holly Hunter was first auditioned, but since she got the role in a theatrical play in New York, she invited her roommate Francis McDormand to undergo auditions. This was the first movie role for Francis McDormand, who later married Joel Cohen. On the answering machine in the house of Maurice recorded the voice of Holly Hunter, who was asked to at least record a short speech for the film.

In accordance with the Film Screening Age Classification System in Russia, the picture has the category: “The film is allowed to be shown to viewers who have reached 16 years of age.”

The teaser for this film was shot long before the filming of the picture itself began. In it, Bruce Campbell, stained with blood, crawled along the road, just like the character Dan Hedaya plays in the film.

In the script, the character of Emmett Walsh was called "Lauren Visser", but in the film he is not called by his name even once (only on his lighter you can see the inscription "Lauren"), and in the credits he was designated as "Private Detective", so as not to confuse viewers.

For a second release and a special DVD edition of 2001, the Coens shot an introduction in which the fictional producer Mortimer Young (head of the fictional company Forever Young Films, which deals with the repair of damaged film), performed by George Ives, talked about working on the painting. The director's version of the picture is shorter than the studio version.

• 1986 - International festival of science fiction films "Fantasporto" - the prize of the audience.

• “Just Blood” on the Internet Movie Database  
• Just blood (English) on allmovie  
• “Just Blood” on the Metacritic website  
• “Just Blood” on the Rotten Tomatoes website