Is 'Blow the Man Down' a True Story?

*Warning: Spoilers for Blow the Man Down ahead.*

You may know Maine for its lobsters, lighthouses and L.L. Bean, but Blow the Man Down offers a look at the darker secrets that a quaint seaside town can hold. An offbeat thriller that has elements of film noir, Blow the Man Down is an indie movie that earned widespread critical acclaim after its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. 

The movie has been compared to the Coen brothers’ cult film Fargo, as it also centers around a macabre crime in a small Maine fishing village. It was written and directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, two filmmakers who co-founded RIP Dora, an all-female film collective based in LA. 

With all the comparisons to Fargo, audiences are wondering whether Blow the Man Down is also based on a true story like Fargo’s title card famously claims to be. 

We’ve done the digging and have all the answers you need about whether Blow the Man Down is based on a true story and what exactly happened in the end. Keep reading!

Blow the Man Down is not based on a true story. However, the Easter Cove women in the film are all based on real women from the lives of the writer/director duo.

As Danielle said in an interview with Women in Hollywood prior to the film’s premiere, “We wanted to tell a story about the women we know in our own lives—our grandmothers, mothers, aunts, and sisters. We tried to come up with ways to showcase the special power they wielded in our lives, a kind of feminine power.”

Bridget added that “this tale is contemporary,” but that they hope the movie invites audiences look at their own grandmothers, mothers, aunts and sisters differently—“to think about women of generations past, and all the untold stories,” she said.

Blow the Man Down tells the story of two sisters, Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor) and Priscilla (Sophie Lowe), who are reunited after the death of their mother. In an early twist, Mary Beth ends up killing a man she meets at a bar after she thinks that he might try to kill her himself. 

Post-kill, Mary Beth turns to her sister for help get rid of the body by putting him into an ice storage box and throw the box into the sea. However, a body washes up ashore (not the person Mary Beth killed), which naturally prompts a police investigation.

The police soon find out that the dead woman was killed by the man that Mary killed. She was working at the local brothel, which is run by a woman named Enid (Margo Martindale).

As the investigation carries on, the girls find that their own family history is entwined with dark history of the village: because of the threat of drunken sailors raping their daughters back in the day, their mother and the women of the town secretly founded the very brothel, which is in the middle of the present-day murder investigation. 

At the end of the movie, the girls come to discover that, despite the fact they live in a village with an entrenched patriarchy, it’s the salty, tough-talking matriarchs of the village that hold the real power. In the final scene, we see the two young protagonists walking past the houses of their mother’s friends. 

As they walk by the last friend, Susie (June Squibb), we can see that she’s hosing something off. As the camera pans forward, we see that she is hosing off the very same icebox that the girls used to get rid of the dead body. The girls and Susie exchange knowing glances and it seems that, once again, the town’s secrets will remain with the town’s women. 

Stream Blow the Man Down on Amazon Prime.