Rating of
3/4
"Green Room" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 05/14/17
A pretentious noise band on a makeshift tour play gig in a remote compound populated by white supremacists and stumble upon a murder scene. Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier's follow up to Blue Ruin takes the formula of the horror film and applies it to a stranger in a strange land style thriller making for a kind of "Night Of The Living Skinheads". I very much enjoyed his debut and this similarly offbeat offering shares its theme of violence - even perpetrated by the"just" - as an ugly, grotesque, even seedy thing rather than something to be glorified. The result is not for the fainthearted and some of the scenes are guaranteed to make you wince, but it's a suitably tense and edgy affair as this assortment of everyman would-be misfits find themselves fighting for their lives when confronted with events completely out of their control. Nearly the entire film happens in the same location which can make it feel a little repetitive but suitably claustrophobic and Patrick Stewart plays nicely against type as a coldly efficient villain with a civilised facade. Perhaps lacking in the intelligence and intensity of his debut, Green Room is still an visceral horror-thriller hybrid that will keep you firmly perched upon the edge of your seat.
