Green Room (2016)
Starring Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat, Patrick Stewart
Directed by Jeremy Saulnier
Despite dabbling in horror-comedy in 2007 with Murder Party, it was 2013’s gritty revenge thriller Blue Ruin that turned the genre spotlight onto Jeremy Saulnier as a directorial force to watch. Funded largely through a Kickstarter campaign, Blue Ruin proved to be an inspiring story of independent filmmaking, going on to receive widespread critical acclaim and grace many year-end best lists in the horror community and beyond. Needless to say, more than a few genre fans have been awaiting Saulnier’s follow-up in eager anticipation over the last couple of years.
Enter Green Room, Saulnier’s latest bloodbath of an offering that is, for all intents and purposes, a very different beast of a film. Approached in many ways with seemingly loftier goals in mind, Green Room sees Saulnier casting his net wider with a story set on a group of millennial punks who are all at once recklessly myopic and unexpectedly earnest. A notably more accessible film than its predecessor, Green Room is a fast-paced thriller that homes in on the nature of survival and man’s instincts as he fights to emerge from an increasingly merciless situation born simply of bad luck.
The film tells the story of a struggling punk band made up of Tiger (Callum Turner), Sam (Shawkat), Pat (Yelchin), and Reece (Joe Cole) as they are winding down on a less-than-glamorous tour through the Northwest. After showing up for a college radio interview, the band is thrown a disappointing curveball as the DJ/promoter contact of theirs reveals that their final gig has fallen through; seeking to make amends for this, he tells the band about an available underground gig of sorts in a secluded Oregon dive bar. Hard up for cash, the band agrees to take the last-minute gig, only to find that the bar is home to a group of staunch neo-Nazi patrons and employees. Though they ultimately deliver in their set for the unsavory crowd, things take a drastic turn when Pat unwittingly stumbles into a murder scene unfolding in the venue green room. Following a shocking turn of events, the band and another witness named Amber (Imogen Poots) find themselves trapped in the green room fighting for their lives as a group of neo-Nazi goons led by Darcy Banker (Stewart) seeks to find a way in to silence the witnesses for good.
What follows this setup is an increasingly violent stand-off in which Saulnier makes masterful use of a limited setting (think an amped up Assault on Precinct 13 with neo-Nazis). With Green Room, the director showcases an undeniably keen sense for claustrophobic intensity and brutality, punctuated by an overarching spirit of defiance. His unrepentant commitment to this vision will surely evoke many visceral responses in audiences, especially when it comes to the film’s violence. Saulnier pulls few — if any — punches, killing off characters with harsh swiftness and turning tables in ways that are often startling. As you come to attach to his unlikely band of heroes and loathe his villains, some of Saulnier’s narrative turns ultimately gut-punch without warning; yet, the director doesn’t budge from his perspective. He maintains the progressively horrific nature of the situation at hand in an unwavering fashion, and it is because of this that Green Room‘s monsters — vile, merciless men, plain and simple — are more effectively terrifying than most of what we have seen on screen in major studio horror films this year.
That is not to say that Green Room is solely an exercise in savagery because there are certainly lighter and deeper aspects present in the parts of this whole, respectively. The violence in the film is definitely crucial to heightening the intensity of the story Saulnier tells, but it is not the sole means to the grander statements he makes. Rather, there is a sense of affective authenticity that underlies the director’s in-your-face approach to this grim tale. This is especially evident in his protagonists, all of whom emerge as surprisingly relatable and endearing individuals beneath the facades of indifference and recalcitrance that initially accompany them as modern-day punks.
Even without obviously planted emotional cues anchoring the focal relationships in Green Room, the character nuances written into Saulnier’s script make for very natural and fully realized connections and character development. Though they aren’t particularly stand-up citizens (Pat and Sam are the closest things to likable), you can’t help but enjoy watching the protagonists here interact. The performances from the film’s younger cast members are especially charming, exuding a fresh energy from the get-go; memorable exchanges between the vulnerable, but scrappy Yelchin and an inexplicably fascinating Poots particularly add a welcome air of incidental levity to some of the film’s bleaker moments. We are not ever hit over the head with any explicit, emotionally rooted reason to care about these folks upon meeting them, but for some reason we do, and it does feel quite emotional as they start to die off — a sentiment that speaks greatly to the nature of Saulnier’s subtle characterization and the film itself as a very human survival story.
Unlike many other films of this nature that can grow implausible very quickly, the courses of action taken by the captives in Green Room luckily remain quite conceivable throughout the entirety of the film. Both the desperate, knee-jerk attempts and semi-elaborate ruses put into place to turn the tables on their captors (led with chilling composure by Stewart, nailing his role as the brooding big bad) are quite imaginable and play out realistically. That the film is void of any eye roll-worthy moments where an out conveniently appears at the last minute certainly helps to keep the audience firmly grounded in the merciless reality of the situation at hand.
Though Saulnier keeps the film moving with one anxiety-inducing sequence after another, Green Room’s ultimate resolution is actually quite understated in a way that recalls Blue Ruin‘s more subdued tone. The film’s final scene might not entirely satisfy those who would prefer an ending that culminates in absolute decimation across the board, but there is something to be said for Saulnier’s deliberate approach here, which manages to make even something like the echo of a gunshot equally and effectively resonant. This decisive restraint ultimately underlies what makes Saulnier such a talent; if he wants you to be disquieted, he can do so in the midst of a frenzied scene of violence or in a moment of calculated stillness — either way you will be disquieted, whether you want it or not. Though there are many opportunities to do so, Saulnier steers clear of misplaced romanticism that has no place in the world of Green Room, and such an unapologetic commitment to a singular vision is admirable in a time when many major genre films bend for the sake of masses who need their horror served up in an easily digestible recipe.
Up front, Green Room will undoubtedly rattle some cages, but it is far more than the sum of its brutal and grimy parts. Rather, it is a damn near perfect exercise in survival horror that captures a surprisingly nuanced air of spirit and humanity beneath its harsh exterior. With this riotous crowd-pleaser, Saulnier has elevated himself as a powerful writing and directorial force, particularly through his masterful ability to generate an infectious, anarchistic energy that is both shocking and extremely fun to watch. Throughout its blood-soaked course, Green Room is sure to elicit as many cheers as it does gasps — and I can imagine Saulnier and Co. will happily welcome both.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
