Joel and Ethan Coen, the Coen brothers, have directed eighteen feature films together over the decades, giving us such classics as Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, The Big Lebowski; O Brother, Where Art Thou?; No Country for Old Men, True Grit, and more. A while back, they decided to split off in their own directions, with Joel directing The Tragedy of Macbeth and Ethan making the documentary Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind as well as the upcoming crime comedy Drive-Away Dolls (which reaches theatres on February 23rd) and the recently announced Honey Don’t. Last summer, Ethan revealed that he was developing a new project with Joel… and now it looks like the Coen brothers might be reuniting to make a horror movie!
The website Montages reported that, while sitting down for a Q&A at the Tromsø International Film Festival in Norway, Ethan and his wife Tricia Cooke (his collaborator on the project he made without his brother) said that the Coen brothers are working on a bloody horror movie that will also be horribly funny. The information comes in the very last paragraph of the site’s Q&A write-up. Here it is, translated from Norwegian:
Finally, Ethan Coen says that he and his brother Joel have written a new script together, and that the plan is for them to once again collaborate on the direction. “It’s a pure horror film, and it gets very bloody. If you like Blood Simple, I think you’ll enjoy it.” Tricia claims that it is also “horribly funny”. All the preparations are done, but Joel may have to finish another project first.
So while Joel works on his project, Ethan and his wife can continue pushing Honey Don’t forward. They describe Drive-Away Dolls and Honey Don’t as the first two chapters in a trilogy they plan to make. The stories of these films aren’t connected in any way, they just consider it a trilogy because all three “are stories with lesbian protagonists and can be classified as trashy B-movies.”
That sounds cool, but it’s the idea of the Coen brothers making a horror movie that really has me hyped. They have never made “a pure horror film” before, so it will be very interesting to see what they do within the genre. I also love that Ethan compares it to their debut thriller Blood Simple, because that’s an awesome movie with great atmosphere.
What do you think of the Coen brothers reuniting to make a horror movie? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.