Green Room

Green Room

Release Date - 4/29/2016

Country of Origin - America

Directed by Jeremy Saulnier

Starring - Patrick Stewart, Anton Yelchin, Imogeen Poots, Macon Blair, and Mark Webber

I don’t see a lot of horror movies in theaters. Correction, I don’t see a lot of modern horror movies in theaters anymore. Sure every so often I’ll go see a classic at a theater, but if a newer movie comes out I tend to just wait till it gets released on DVD. My reason? Modern horror doesn’t really put stuff out that I personally want to go and spend money to see in a cinema. So much of it is either predictable jump scare supernatural films made for teenagers or another Purge movie, which please, stop making them. Sure every so often comes out that catches my interest such as Tusk, It Follows and to a lesser extent Under the Skin, but really it is rare that horror movies get released that I either want to pony up the money for to rent or pony up even more for a theatrical viewing.

So I was rather shocked when Green Room caught my eye. Couple months ago I was writing down movies to see over the year to attempt to be more in touch with what gets put out and get back into the multiplex viewings being more often than they usually are. The title of Green Room caught my eye on Wikipedia and after reading about it I was intrigued, mostly because of Patrick Stewart. When the first red band trailer came out intrigue became outright interest in seeing the movie, and needing a horror film to tide me over till October (and believe me when I say I’m not really salivating and being impatient to see Rings) I decided to go ahead and see it in the theaters and on the way there decided “Hey, why not review it?” So that I will do.

Now of course this being a movie only a week old (in terms of full theatrical release) don’t expect me to get into great detail about the flick. In fact less detail than I usually do. With that said let’s get to it.

A punk band known as The A’int Rights head out for an interview a gig for a short little tour. Upon giving the interview they find out that not only will it possibly not air, but that they’ll be performing in a Mexican restaurant and make next to nothing. The interviewer as means of apology and making it up to the band for this little happening gets them a gig and his cousin’s club. There’s a catch though; it is run by Nazis. But in need of money the band agrees to take the gig and take it they do, with it going fairly well.

But it seems bad luck has decided to make them its personal bitch, as just as they’re about to leave they walk into the green room to see a dead body surrounded by a local punk band and the dead girl’s friend. Seeing the band freak out and going to call the cops two of the bouncers usher the local band out and keep the friend and our main characters locked in to wait for the cops to come. Well shit turns sour as the bouncers and own of the club stage a small incident to get the cops away. Why? Because they don’t like the idea of this out of town band paying witness to some “business” and want everything cleaned up nice and smoothly. Except as you’d imagine our main characters are rightfully pissed off about this and after they are attacked while trying to play along decide that enough is enough and begin to stage an escape.Will they escape? Will they survive? Why are those involved with the club trying to keep things hush hush? All of this will be revealed as our musical mates try to escape the green room.

This is a movie that pretty much delivers what was promised in the trailers; punk band goes to club, sees shit they shouldn’t, and then has to deal with Nazis. Not all that hard to mess up. But surprisingly the film is a little muddied. How? Where? Well I’ll tell you.

Starting with story I’ll be repeating myself when I say that it is pretty simple. Not that it’s a bad thing, after all when you have a horror/exploitation movie plots are going to get simple, and this one is as simple as it needs to be…almost. Thing is the movie has to give a reason as to why the band is basically being held hostage and while one is provided it really isn’t explained. I can’t go into too much detail but seeing as this arguably is the biggest plot point and moment of the movie that explains everything, it just doesn’t do a good job at providing clear answers. Yet while they muddled it there I can forgive it because the pacing is really good and the movie builds up and releases tension so very well. Honestly this is one of the best new movies horror or not I’ve seen in years in terms of tension in pacing. Again I can’t say much but trust me when I say that the movie keeps you on the edge of your behind and seat. Another kudos I have to give to the filmmakers is that the twist I thought was the most obvious and going happen didn’t happen. My twist/bullshit detector goes into overdrive for horror movies and it was screaming here that a predictable twist was coming, and then it didn’t. Kudos movie, kudos. So is it a good story? It being so simple does make it hard to criticize because really it needed to be simple, and the tension/pacing is executed really well. But…you can’t really shit the bed on the information that is telling the audience why all of this is happening.

What about acting and technical? Like the story I won’t divulge too much into development and what not (but needless to say simple story equals simple characters) however I will say that the acting was pretty meh. Save for Patrick Stewart but I mean, come on, it is Patrick Stewart. Everybody else is just really there. Actually the two characters considered the leads are arguably the blandest of the flick and as such worst. Moving to technical and, well, it’s an independent horror film in the modern age. The shots of the nature of Oregon are great. Talking about the interior shots though just shows some more meh. Now the lighting in the actual green room is pretty good and conveys some unease, but everything else is just standard blueish purple dark lighting. The shots themselves are just meh and really I don’t know what else to say. There really wasn’t a shot aside from the few natures one that stuck out. Now you may be thinking “This movie should have a good number of punk music in it.” You’d be wrong. Aside from the two bands there is no other punk music in the movie; actually there was barely any music in general. But what about violence, because boy did the trailer make this look like a bloodbath. The movie is pretty brutal, utilizing box cutters, guns, machetes, lighttubes, and pieces of metal and even dogs to dish out the punishment. You would then be correct in assuming it gets graphic, with anything involving the dogs being disgusting and nasty. Our injuries and kills still pack a punch outside of the dog moments, but it dribbles into your generic shooting and slashing and stabbing stuff. If you’re one of my regular readers who watch some of the more extreme types of films we look at it there is one kill in particular you’ll find pretty tame and done much better in other movies, from the 80s. Basically the acting follows in the story’s footsteps in terms of qualities (save for Stewart) and the technical side follows the overall meh quality.

So with it still in a couple of theaters in a wider fashion and a home media release set for July, is Green Room worth it? Well to be honest I was expecting a lot from this movie as I saw a couple of fellow horror reviewers hyping it up, yet I found the film overall to be pretty average. A story which while as compact and simple as it needs to be forgets to fully make motivations clear, pretty forgetful acting, forgetful cinematography, a rather sad lack of music is pretty hard to recommend to a degree. Sure you have the violence and Patrick Stewart, but I can’t really think of anything else memorable to tell you fine folk.

If you’re interested in the movie then I do say see it, as even though it isn’t as great (in my opinion) as reviews make it out to be it was still fairly entertaining, and it was kinda fun seeing a violent horror movie after a long sludge of just plain despicable gore (and trust me I’m getting to those). In the end, I say see the movie, but maybe wait until it’s out on home media or on a streaming site.