Prime Video has added one of the tensest thriller movies of the 21st century

Stephen Porzio

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The revenge thriller has a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Prime Video has just added Blue Ruin, the extremely tense US indie revenge thriller movie from 2013.

The film centres around Dwight (Macon Blair, Oppenheimer), a homeless drifter who returns to his hometown with the goal of exacting brutal revenge for the deaths of his parents years previously.

While carry out his vengeance, however, things do not go exactly according to plan and Dwight suddenly finds himself and his remaining family being hunted.

Blue Ruin was the breakthrough project for actor Blair and writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, who would go on to collaborate on the equally brilliant movie Green Room and the very good film Hold the Dark.

Saulnier also has a new thriller coming soon to Netflix titled Rebel Ridge that we here at JOE are very excited for.

Looking back, it is easy to see why Blue Ruin was so acclaimed upon its release – with its unpredictable plot, its sense of gritty realism, its nearly consistently tense atmosphere and its thoughtful exploration of the fallout of violence and revenge.

Holding a whopping 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes, here is a sample of some of the many glowing reviews the movie earned:

Chicago Reader: “Saulnier makes impressive use of silence and slow camera movements, allowing the suspense to simmer until violence seems practically inevitable.”

Chicago Sun-Times: “You couldn’t ask for a more unlikely avenger than the ill-equipped sort-of hero of Blue Ruin, and that’s precisely why it’s far, far more suspenseful than the typical violent revenge thriller.”

Entertainment Weekly: “With the same brand of realist irony the Coens used to cool down Blood Simple, writer-director Jeremy Saulnier slows the genre’s heartbeat to gripping effect.”

Observer (UK): “A stripped-down tale of revenge with bloodied hands and a blackened heart, this viscerally intelligent thriller takes a new stab at an old genre with refreshingly distressing results.”

USA Today: “Blue Ruin is the rare film that is nearly consistently tense, the suspense only temporarily subsiding about an hour into the story. It’s a welcome respite.”

Variety: “A lean and suspenseful genre piece that follows a bloody trail of vengeance to its cruel, absurd and logical conclusion.”

Blue Ruin is streaming on Prime Video in Ireland and the UK right now.

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