Blue Ruin, a festival favorite already, is being touted as Hitchcockian in it's ability to build a tense atmosphere. One of the pilars of building such an atmosphere is never knowing entirely what is going on...I'm determined not to spoil this movie for myself by reading Travis's review, which you can find here, so needless to say all I've gathered is that a man gets out of jail and a war of revenge, bloody and brutal, starts. Atmosphere...I've said that word at least twice already in this paragraph, and there's a reason for that. In a thriller, a REAL thriller, it's all that matters. You can have the same story that's been told time and again but if you build a world that feels as chaotic, fear-inducing, and violent as your story claims it to be, well then you have something new all together. As you'll see in the trailer below Blue Ruin was shot with an understanding of how important this aspect is. The world seems muted...the way a depressed person would see colors, it's all a bit dirty, and most importantly there's a palpable air of uncertainty surrounding each second.
