A man chases a screaming young woman through the snow as Enid watches through the window. Sisters Priscilla and Mary Beth Connolly attend their mother's funeral. After both sisters have a verbal confrontation, Mary Beth storms out, and goes to a bar where she meets a man named Gorski. Drunk, Mary Beth leaves with him and drives his car for him, eventually crashing it. When they get out to look at the damage, Gorski opens his trunk and Mary Beth sees blood inside. Gorski immediately tries to attack Mary Beth but she flees into the night. Gorski follows her, and Mary Beth jumps up behind him and spears him in the neck with a harpoon. Still alive, he grabs for her, and she kills him with a brick to the head. Mary Beth returns home covered in blood to a shocked Priscilla, who calls the police, but changes her mind and hangs up. Priscilla helps Mary Beth get rid of Gorski's body, using a knife to chop up his arms to make the body fit in a cooler box which they then throw into the ocean. The next day, Priscilla can’t find the knife they used, which has ‘Connolly Fish’ written on it. Mary Beth goes to Gorski's shack to find the knife but instead finds money. Later, Enid, a brothel owner, sees the Connolly knife in Gorski's shack. Meanwhile, the body of a woman washes up on the rocks. The woman is identified as Dee, one of the girls working for Enid. Local police, Officer Brennan and his partner, Officer Coletti, interview Enid, who runs the Oceanview brothel, and the girls who work there to try to get to the bottom of the murder. Brennan finds Enid suspicious, but Coletti, having known Enid for years, doesn't think so. Brennan and Coletti find Gorski’s car, which has a gun inside, and blood and a terrible smell in the trunk, and are sure that he must be the murderer. Meanwhile, Alexis, one of Enid’s working girls, knowing Enid owed Dee money, believes Enid had her killed. Enid blackmails the Connolly sisters to bring back the money they took from Gorski's shack in exchange for the knife she found there. The sisters decide to confess everything to the police the following day. That night, however, Officer Brennan comes asking questions about the phone call made to the Policethe night of their mother’s funeral and they end up lying about the reason for calling and also their whereabouts that night. The sisters change their mind about making their confession. The Connolly sisters go to Enid and return the money. She tells them how much she misses their mother, and how their mother left the brothel business to protect the two of them. She offers them some of the money and tells them that they could work for her after it runs out and when they refuse the money, she turns angry, calling them spoiled brats and screaming, after which she collapses, drunk. The girls get the knife and leave. Alexis, having overheard the whole thing, enters Enid’s room and smothers her to death with a pillow. She takes the money and leaves town with one of the other girls from the brothel. Doreen notices something in the water. Gail comes to see Coletti but the conversation is not revealed. After getting some information, they go to Oceanview. They see the Connolly sisters as they walk towards them. The sisters see Suzie washing out the cooler Gorski was put in. Suzie smiles at them.
Filming began in February 2018 in Harpswell. The name of the town in the film is changed to Easter Cove, Maine.
Release
It had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, 2019. Shortly after, Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film. It also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2019. It was released exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on March 20, 2020.
Critical reception
Blow the Man Down received positive reviews from film critics. It holds a 98% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 108 reviews, with a weighted average of 7.63/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Clever, funny, and original, Blow the Man Down is one hell of a ride that should not be missed." On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 72 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
