Macon Blair in Blue Ruin (Radius/TWC)

Cinematographer-turned-writer-director Jeremy Saulnier follows his first feature, the comic horror Murder Party (2007), with Blue Ruin, an original parody of a revenge thriller. Resourcefully crafted and crewed with the help of friends and family and partially funded by Kickstarter, this low-budget production packs a big punch that belies its humble origins.

Aimless down-and out-drifter Dwight (Macon Blair) lives in his rusted Pontiac on a Delaware beach and scavenges for food in the dumpsters of the local amusement park. When he learns that a figure from his past is being released from prison, Dwight’s compelled to return to his childhood home to exact revenge.

While awaiting arrest for his crime, and happy to serve his time, Dwight reunites with his estranged sister and her kids. But when Dwight’s crime goes unreported, he realizes that his victim’s grieving family wants vengeance on its own terms. He immediately recognizes his fatal error of judgment. Having put his remaining family in jeopardy, the amateur assassin is way over his head.

Saulnier wrote the script for his best friend, actor Macon Blair, the lead in Murder Party. Blair gives a pitch-perfect performance as the vulnerable anti-hero, introduced as a potentially menacing vagrant and revealed as a fallible everyman trapped in a cycle of violence. Amy Hargreaves gives a credible and restrained performance as Dwight’s estranged, suburban sister, angered by his reckless endangerment of her family.

Shot in the family homes of members of the production team, Saulnier’s naturally lit cinematography is carefully composed with shallow focus for maximum effect. He toys with the audience’s fear of what it can and can’t see with visual reveals that ramp up the tension and subvert expectation.

The script is confident and so tight that it squeaks. The first 20 minutes are virtually dialogue free yet nonetheless enthrall, visually turning the viewers’ perceptions on their head. In a great opening scene, through a haze of steam, Saulnier reveals a bearded man soaking in the bath of an archetypal middle-class home. Suddenly the suburban serenity is shattered when the house’s rightful owners return and Dwight flees naked. He returns to sleeping rough in his car, the antithesis of the earlier suburban ideal.

After establishing Dwight’s marginalized existence and his comic resourcefulness, Saulnier cultivates the mystery by deliberately withholding the gruesome details, building the intrigue and viewer’s sense of complicity. The suspense and violence are finely balanced with comedy.

When Dwight waits at the prison gates to exact revenge on his victim, Will (David W. Thompson), he follows Will and his family to a bar room celebration. Armed with a pathetically small knife, Dwight initiates the first of several brutal set pieces. Saulnier, however, doesn’t glorify the violence. Despite the deep-seated psychological trauma that motivates Dwight, he lacks the skill and sociopathic tendencies to be an efficient cold-blooded killer.

While the violence will make you squirm (some audience members hid behind their hands at points), the humor in the David vs. Goliath setup provides relief and releases the tension. Character observations, domestic details, and comic contradictions add to the mix, like Will’s family securing their home by packing an arsenal large enough to arm a small country. In one scene, after being hit by a crossbow arrow, Dwight limps into a pharmacy to buy supplies. When he is questioned about the blood on the dollars that he offers in payment, Dwight begins to offer an explanation but utters no words—his face says it all.

Blue Ruin has been compared to Tarantino and the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple. It’s an easy comparison. Saulnier himself pitched the film as “’No Country for Old Men’ except that the protagonist is a total idiot.”

Confidently directed, funny, and unpredictable, the film will keep you glued to your seat, and saves one last twist until the very end. This unique tale of retribution is the best film so far this year.