History Film / BlowOut

* GovernmentConspiracy: Zigzagged. [[spoiler: Someone wanted to torpedo the[=McRyan=] presidential bid. But only with a dirty scandal story. Burke who is clearly out of mind carries out an assassination instead, muddying the waters. Burkes handlers then wash their hands of him.]]

Travolta plays Jack Terry, a sound technician for a low-budget exploitation film, who is told to find more a realistic scream for a slasher victim. One night, he's out in the woods by a road, recording general sound effects. A car comes down the road, there's an explosion, and it goes off the side of the road and into the water. Jack rushes to the water and jumps in. He discovers a man dead in the car and a woman named Sally (Allen) trying to get out. Eventually, Jack is able to break a window in the car and pull Sally out to safety.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: When people start showing an interest in Jack's claims to have recorded the gunshot (and thus the murder), it's Jack ''himself'' who points out that, being a soundman, he could have easily doctored it.

* StylisticSuck: ''Co-Ed Frenzy'' is made to be as trashy and cheesy as possible, in a deliberate TakeThat to ''Film/{{Halloween}}''. A significant subplot of the film involves Jack trying to track down a good scream to dub over one of the actress's death screams because the original take was unusably bad.

* ComplexityAddiction: Burke could have saved himself a lot of extra work by just going with the original plan of getting blackmail photos of [=McRyan=]. On top of necessitating an entire cover-up that he receives ''no'' assistance for from his original clients, he decides part of this cover-up should include committing an additional series of serial murders so it looks like Sally was an unrelated victim of a SerialKiller with a specific type. Justified as Burke clearly enjoys killing for its own sake.

** Manny Karp, who got Sally into the whole mess, doesn't seem too broken up about risking her life and has no apparent remorse for [=McRyan=]'s death, is also left alone by Burke specifically because these slimy traits keep him from posing any further threat that he'll confess the truth to anyone.

Not to be confused this with a [[VideoGame/BlowOut sci-fi video game]].

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/BlowUp'' and ''Film/TheConversation''. The ending in particular is one to [[spoiler: ''Film/{{Chinatown}}''.]]

Creator/QuentinTarantino, no less, has called this De Palma's best film and one of his three favourite films. See also ''Film/BlowUp'', the inspiration for this film.

Don't confuse this with a [[VideoGame/BlowOut sci-fi video game]].

Travolta plays Jack, a sound technician for a low-budget exploitation film, who is told to find more a realistic scream for a slasher victim. One night, he's out in the woods by a road, recording general sound effects. A car comes down the road, there's an explosion, and it goes off the side of the road and into the water. Jack rushes to the water and jumps in. He discovers a man dead in the car and a woman named Sally (Allen) trying to get out. Eventually, Jack is able to break a window in the car and pull Sally out to safety.

Creator/QuentinTarantino, no less, has called this De Palma's best film and one of his three favourite films.

* DragonWithAnAgenda: Burke is just a hired contractor, but he's one who goes far beyond what his employers wanted him to do and keeps up his plan (which involves killignSally) even after they cut him loose.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blowout.jpg]]

* TheBadGuyWins: At the end of the film, [[spoiler:Jack has survived; however [[spoiler:Sally]] has been killed and the villains have recovered the original tape which proved that the accident Jack taped at the beginning of the film was, in fact, an assassination]]. He's left with only the dark BrickJoke of finally getting the scream his producer wanted for the movie.

* FallenHero: Jack is established as one (especially in the eyes of the law) for a major blunder during an undercover assignment that got a cop he was supposed to assist killed.

* FailureHero: Poor Jack, [[spoiler:at the end he achieves nothing except the banal task of finding a scream sound effect recorded during Sally's death for SlasherMovie he was working on]].

* FallenHero: Jack is established as one (especially in the eyes of the laws) for major blunder during an undercover assignment that got a cop he was supposed to assist killed.