Intense horror-thriller will grab you from start to finish

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2016)

"Green Room" (2015 release; 94 min.) brings the (mis)adventures of four musicians in a punk band called the Ain't Rights As the movie opens, we see the four of them waking up in their van, after the van slid off the road the night before. It's not long before they meet up with a local radio show host, who is able to book them onto a nearby concert the next day. When the band gets there, they realize that this is a show for Nazi skinheads. When they open their set with a cover of a Dead Kennedys' anti-Nazi tune, the audience gets very restless. Things only get worse from there... At this point we're about 10 minutes into the movie, but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, who most recently brought us the excellent "Blue Ruin". Here, he brings a very different story, namely what happens to a punk band when they accidentally end up performing for Nazi skinheads, and things turn sour (in a very unexpected way--sorry, I cannot reveal more). As soon as the band starts their gig, the movie's tension rackets up and simply never lets go from there until the very end. The cast is an ensemble of no-names, at least for me, with of course the exception of Patrick Stewart. Stewart plays the role of the leader of the Nazi skinheads, and he brings it with ice-cold detachment and ruthlessness. Beware: there are a couple of pretty gruesome scenes, so if that is not your thing, by all means stay away from it. if on the other hand you like a true original horror-thriller story, you are in for quite a treat. Last but not least, there is an excellent soundtrack, both from the original score (composed by Brooke Blair and Will Blair), and also the various songs interwoven into the music. When CCR's "Sinister Purpose" starts playing over the movie's end credits, it brings a sense of relief, as in: you made it alive through the end! Which is more than can be said for a number of the characters in the movie...
"Green Room" premiered at Cannes 2015, exactly a year ago, to critical acclaim. No idea why it's taken this long to get a theatrical release but better late than never I suppose. "Green Room" opened on 3 or 4 screens in Greater Cincinnati this past weekend. The early evening screening where I saw this at the other day was attended okay but not great, somewhat to my surprise. In you are in the mood for a top-notch horror-thriller, you cannot go wrong with this. "Green Room" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!