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There’s a sub-genre of dark comedy that, dramatically, is a no-brainer: someone in a group, however small, of relatively innocent people, kind-of accidentally kills someone; the group agrees to cover up the crime (and, usually, help dispose of the body); and then all members of the group face three ever increasing pressures: the fear of being found out (and arrested), their own moral conscience, and the disintegration of the group’s resolve. It’s a superb dramatic engine: the structure is solid, the stakes are high, and the conflict is inherent. Some of the classic examples include Shallow Grave, Very Bad Things and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Blow The Man Down’s point of difference is its milieu, which is wintry coastal Maine, on the North-Eastern US seaboard, in a fishing community. Assumedly touristy by summer, it’s fishermen and locals in the off-season, and the filmmakers, Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, utilise a chorus of fishermen singing stunningly beautiful sea-shanties to comment on the action, to great effect. I heard an interview with them where they revealed that they were obsessed with watching The Wicker Man (1973) while shooting their film, and that movie’s sense of weird isolation and creepy local colour generously infuses their work.
It’s not nearly as well scripted, or ingeniously directed, as the examples above, but the milieu definitely offers its own rewards, as does the supporting cast of exemplary female character actors led by June Squibb and Margo Martindale. It’s borrowing from tropes you’ve seen before, but shuffles and deals them fresh.