Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy‘s darkly comedic thriller Blow the Man Down initially received rave reviews after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019. The film took home the Best Screenplay award at the festival, eventually earned a 99% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, and garnered a Best First Screenplay nomination for its debut writing/directing duo at the Independent Spirit Awards. Despite all this critical praise, it never really caught on with mainstream audiences in a major way. This lack of commercial success has nothing to do with the quality of the film, though, but rather the time it was released.
After being acquired by Amazon Studios at Tribeca, Blow the Man Down was released widely on Prime Video on March 20, 2020, one week after the White House declared a national emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Understandably, many potential viewers had more on their minds than keeping up with the latest Prime Video originals at this time. Still, it’s quite a shame that Blow the Man Down has remained fairly underseen in the years since 2020, as it is one of the best thrillers of the decade so far.
‘Blow the Man Down’ Is a Traditional Thriller With a Modern Sensibility
Blow the Man Down effectively nails many of the familiar beats of the ever-popular thriller genre. It tells the story of a pair of sisters named Priscilla (Sophie Lowe) and Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor) who reside in a tiny and dreary fishing village on the coast of Maine. The film begins at their mother’s funeral, a dark day that becomes much more tragic when Mary Beth’s encounter with a creepy and dangerous man — played by future The Bear star Ebon Moss-Bachrach — at a local bar leads to a killing that the sisters are forced to cover up. Along the way, the girls face several moral dilemmas while uncovering secrets about the seedy history of their small town and the role their mother played in helping to establish that history.
In honoring the traditional framework of the genre, Krudy and Cole heighten the suspense of their film throughout. After getting to the inciting deadly incident within the first 15 or so minutes, the filmmakers quickly introduce certain murder mystery staples, like a pair of policemen who cross paths with our protagonists, a missing weapon that possesses incriminating evidence, a mysterious bag of cash, and a seemingly unrelated but ultimately connected murder that reveals vital plot information. Where Blow the Man Down separates itself from some of its influences that came before it, though, is in the characters it foregrounds and the themes it chooses to focus on.
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The film’s cast of characters is rounded out by three elderly friends of Priscilla and Mary Beth’s late mother — played by June Squibb, Marceline Hugot, and Annette O’Toole — who act as watchful protectors not only of their deceased pal’s daughters but of the entire community. A fourth, more overtly menacing town matriarch, brought to life by a scene-stealing Margo Martindale, also greatly contributes to the film’s primary conflict. In centering their tale on a pair of sisters alongside these older ladies, it’s clear that Krudy and Cole wanted to explore the meaning of sisterhood, the importance of what is passed down through generational female relationships, and the quiet power often held by underestimated women. With more sensitive subject matter like sex work and enduring trauma being incorporated into the story, the film maintains a delicate and respectful tone throughout. Krudy and Cole showcased total control over their story by never sacrificing suspense to awkwardly make room for a plainly presented message, though.
‘Blow the Man Down’ Is a Masterclass in Small-Town Suspense
In talking about their own experience growing up in and around northeastern fishing towns, Krudy and Cole said in a 2020 interview with Creative Screenwriting magazine, “These towns are beautiful when you walk down the street, but these fishing towns – boom or bust industries – are also known for drugs and other complexities within the fishing industry.” Their film very much exemplifies the idea that the quaint appearance of these tiny townships often covers up a more complicated and illicit history. By frequently using haunting establishing shots to present the fictional town of Easter Cove, Maine, as a bleak and discomforting place, the directors deliver the paranoia and claustrophobic feeling that can accompany living in a small town where everyone knows everyone and secrets are impossible to keep.
Of course, in any story about a small town, there has to be one character who desperately wants to escape. In the case of Blow the Man Down, that character is Mary Beth. This creates an authentic tension with her sister, who is much more inclined to stay and carry on with the family business, especially in the wake of their mother’s death. The inclusion of these specific character details gives the viewer a sense that Krudy and Cole have a deep understanding of the world they’ve created and the people that inhabit it. As does the decision to make the potentially “life-changing” money that Mary Beth finds be a total of $50,000.
It’s hard to watch Blow the Man Down now and not think about the circumstances that surrounded its release. Though Krudy and Cole went on to make House of Spoils in 2024, one can’t help but wonder if they would have gone on to busier careers in the aftermath of their debut had it come out at another time. Also, despite it being just five years old, the film harkens back to a different time for streaming movies, when it felt like companies were actually interested in finding and supporting talented independent artists. Instead of some of the star-studded, unfocused, and poorly constructed projects that get released today, straight-to-streaming films should be smaller and well-made movies that act as introductions to up-and-coming voices. Blow the Man Down remains a perfect example of that.
- Release Date
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April 26, 2019
- Runtime
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90 minutes
- Director
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Bridget Savage Cole, Danielle Krudy
