Filled with tension to the end

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2017)

I liked the movie. I didn't feel the awe that so many of the reviewers reported, but the direction was spot on and the acting, too. One of my few complaints is that the film was too dark, in the way that it was hard to see what was going on. It was realistically dark, but a bit annoying. The second is that it was a bit slow; perhaps I was spoiled by non stop action flicks there, though.
The plot revolves around this hard punk rock band that has a gig in a skinhead joint and they witness a murder. Trying to cover it up (and their heroin operation and whatever they were doing down there) the owner is attempting not only to murder the young people, but also to stage it in a believable way for the police.
It was interesting in the sense that it felt very real. The situations, ironically, felt weird because no one was good at what they were trying to do. These were hard neonazi backwater hillbillies, but they weren't proficient at killing, they were afraid, they made mistakes. The members of the band were trying to survive, but didn't take the logical solution or even the hysterical "let me out of here!" cliché that is so overused in thrillers, but had more human reactions that endeared them to the viewer.
The scene in the end describes Saulnier's vision to the dot: "This is a nightmare", says a member of the band, "For us all", replies the leader of the bad guys. The ending is neither happy, nor hopeless, just ugly, dirty, leaving you with the same feeling the characters in the film, including the dog, had "why did this had to happen at all?".