3.5 stars. Rated R, for brutal graphic violence, gory images, profanity and drug content
By Derrick Bang
This is a nasty little chiller
... in the best possible way.
That said, writer/director Jeremy
Saulnier’s gory survival saga definitely
isn’t for the faint of heart. The unsettling premise is reasonable enough to be
quite scary on its own, and the vicious, suspenseful execution is the stuff of
nightmares. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here...
 |
| As Amber (Imogen Poots, far left) looks on with grim satisfaction, Reece (Joe Cole) attempts to persuade a trapped skinhead into explaining what the hell is going on; the rest of Reece's friends — from left, Tiger (Callum Turner), Sam (Alia Shawkat) and Pat (Anton Yelchin) — wait to see what will happen next. |
Saulnier burst onto the scene
with 2007’s high-camp gore-fest, Murder
Party, which evoked pleasant memories of 1992’s Dead Alive, Peter Jackson’s early-career exercise in similar bad
taste. (Well ... pleasant memories for those who go for such things, anyway.)
Saulnier got a lot more serious
with his second outing, 2013’s Blue Ruin,
which made respectable noise at Cannes and numerous other film festivals.
Clearly, he was a filmmaker to watch, and Green
Room — his newest exercise in nail-biting tension — is further proof. It
belongs in the grand tradition of Straw
Dogs, Assault on Precinct 13 and
even Night of the Living Dead, all of
which trap small groups of people in enclosed spaces, vastly outnumbered by
evil forces determined not to let them escape alive.
Things begin quietly enough, as
we meet the scruffy members of a hardscrabble punk band dubbed The Ain’t
Rights: vocalist Tiger (Callum Turner), guitarist Sam (Alia Shawkat), bassist
Pat (Anton Yelchin) and drummer Reece (Joe Cole). They’re nearing the end of a
road trip/tour that has netted some artistic satisfaction but little in the way
of cold, hard cash; they’re tired and discouraged.
This introduction is handled
economically by Saulnier, who in a few quick scenes tells us everything we need
to know about these twentysomethings. Pat is the philosopher; Sam keeps
everybody in line; Tiger and Reece are the hardcore punkers. Minor larceny
aside — clandestinely siphoning gas, when they lack the funds to fill up their
van — they’re reasonably decent folks: just another enthusiastic quartet of
musicians trying to get noticed.
After a potentially lucrative gig
falls through, they accept a replacement booking, to play an afternoon set at
an isolated, rundown club deep in the Oregon backwoods. Their arrival is
greeted with quiet suspicion by the locals, many obviously of the
skinhead/white supremacist persuasion, but the club manager — Macon Blair, as
Gabe — seems friendly enough.
