We finally got round to seeing Green Room, the follow up to writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s impressive Blue Ruin.
The film centres on a Punk Band called Ain’t Rights. The band are wanting to be true to their music and have no social media presence so travel from one low paid gig to another, stealing petrol and living off rice to make ends meet.
After a particularly low paid gig, they are referred to another Neo-Nazi club in the remote woods. With money being good they accept.
The band consists of Pat (the late Anton Yelchin); Sam (Alia Shawkat); Reece (Joe Cole) and Tiger (Callum Turner).
They alienate the audience with a Dead Kennedys cover but eventually win them over with their original songs and enthusiasm.
Afterthey perform they go to collect their money and are about to hit the road, when Sam remembers she left her phone on charge in the Green Room, they went in prior to going on stage. Pat goes into the room to retrieve it and sees a murdered girl on the floor.
Amber (Imogen Poots) the girl’s friend, appears to be held captive and begs Sam to get help and call the police.
It is here, the film dramatically changes as the friendly management go to protect themselves and the venue.
First, the call to the police is resolved, by paying a skinhead to take a stabbing from a fellow skinhead. After that they hold the band captive in the green room and call on the owner, Darcy (Patrick Stewart) to decide what to do next.
Darcy tries to negotiate with the band from outside the door, asking them to free their bouncer, Justin (Eric Edelstein) and return his gun. Amber finds a view and sees this is a trap.
Pat offers the gun with no bullets, but as he does so, he is attached with knives and other weapons, leaving him with serious wounds.
It is now the band realise this stand off will not see them walk free and they must fight for their lives to get out. The difficulty being the green room has no exits and the basement beneath also offers no way out as is now used as a heroin lab.
What follows is the bands attempts to get free and the venue’s staff attempts to kill them and there will be many very bloody casualties This film is an 18 for a reason as guns, knives and dogs attack on both sides.
The film is a very violent horror thriller, and a change from other home invasion type films which I guess would be the film’s closest comparisons.
We found the film further evidence that Saulnier is a director to watch, the cast are all good, Yelchin as the lead, shows once again how versatile he was by being able to do the small movies like this before heading for franchise duty in the likes of Star Trek.
Poots (re-teaming with Yelchin, after appearing together in the Fright Night reboot) also plays a good strong female role and is not reduced to a scream queen. The rest of the band and the venue staff all are good too.
And Stewart makes a believable, do what it takes, stop at nothing bad guy.
If you like films of this genre, Green Room will be well worth a watch
Watch the trailer at the film’s website here:
Get the film from Amazon here:
Do you have a favourite ‘hunted down victim’ film like Green Room? We would as always love to hear from you.
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