‘Blow The Man Down’ on Amazon is a Dark, Women-Led Comedy Reminiscent of ‘Fargo’

If you’re looking for some dark humor to get you through these dark times, look no further than Blow the Man Down on Amazon Prime. Written and directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, this film—which released digitally today after premiering at Tribeca Film Festival last April—essentially has the vibe of Fargo and Twin Peaks, but every character that matters is a woman. What better way to spend your self-imposed and/or government-imposed lockdown this weekend?

Set in the fictional seaside town of Easter Cove, Maine, Blow the Man Down stars Morgan Saylor and Sophie Lowe as Mary Beth and Priscilla Connolly, two sisters who have recently lost their mother to a terminal illness. Mary Beth, the more reckless of the two, finds herself in a dangerous situation with a threatening man who is almost definitely going to hurt her—until she hurts him first. Fatally. While technically self-defense, you can understand why she wouldn’t want to go to the police about the man she harpooned in the throat.

Instead, the sisters attempt to sloppily hide the body. Soon, they get sucked into their tiny sea town’s underbelly of crime, like a hotel of sex workers run by character actress Margo Martindale. The nosy old ladies who act as the village’s moral police—played by absolute pros June Squibb, Annette O’Toole, and Marceline Hugot—start to do what they do best, and nose their way in. The movie becomes a broad portrait of a self-contained, tiny town that’s quaint on the outside, but ugly on the inside.

The playful attitude Blow the Man Down adapts towards the criminal underbelly of Easter Cove, Maine is the kind dark humor that’s perfect for these dark, scary times, when many of us are watching the world around us come apart from the inside of our dark homes. Blow the Man Down is not the kind of movie that will have you hyperventilating on the couch or running to the grocery store to buy that packet of brown rice no one else wanted. It is also not the kind of movie that will leave you feeling disconnected, because it’s so far removed from the reality of this serious situation. Instead, it’s the kind of movie that will have you laughing at two sisters awkwardly trying to shove a dead body into a cooler. It is, in short, the kind of movie that will remind you it’s OK to laugh in a crisis. Isn’t that what we all need right now?

Watch Blow the Man Down on Prime Video