A different kind of (actually) scary movie, one that doesn't fit in any neat box

Rating: 8/10 (11 January 2017)

Forget mainstream horror movies with possessions, demons and serial killers – "Green Room" is what an actually scary movie feels like. Being trapped like fish in a barrel by callous, murderous neo-Nazis? That's legitimately terrifying.
Jeremy Saulnier's third feature film doesn't fall under the standard Hollywood definition of horror, (or thriller, or crime drama), but it's gory and will make your insides sweat with anxiety. Worst of all – the premise is frighteningly plausible.
"Green Room" follows a punk rock band that's spent every penny between them on their current road trip to the point that they're siphoning gasoline just to get to the next gig. When a show falls through, however, Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner) reluctantly accept a hookup to play at a remote skinhead bar, which will provide them with enough cash to get home. Just as they're about to leave, however, they witness a murder and things start to head south.
The seemingly mundane decision that leads to their captivity will undoubtedly be one of those movie moments that causes you to shout at the screen to stop it from happening every single time you watch this movie – if you're brazen enough to subject yourself to it multiple times. That's another reason "Green Room" is so scary: the razor- thin line between life as usual and horrible trauma.
A cinematographer first, Saulnier is one of those filmmakers who can take a low-budget story that would otherwise be mundane and elevate it with excellent craftsmanship. The darkness levels, the shot framing, the approach to violence and gore – "Green Room" could have been a campy horror endeavor, but Saulnier never allows the film to lose its grip on reality. Even when he pushes boundaries a little, the idea that all this could actually happen never dissipates.
The toll this takes on the characters and the way we imagine ourselves in their hapless situation has a lot to do with that grounding. A key negotiation scene between Pat and the club owner, Darcy (Patrick Stewart, whose gravitas only makes the film scarier) in which tensions run high but blood has not yet been shed, works, not for the particular scenario or dialogue, but the way our brains reel in trying to process the best positive outcome despite knowing full well things will get worse for the band. The way Saulnier's script keeps the intentions of the skinheads vague, but does not veil them completely, muddies the line between good and evil long enough to draw out the suspense for maximum effectiveness.
Narratively, there isn't much for Saulnier to work with given the premise. Instead, the real arc is how the main characters go from your average reckless punk rock "kids" to needing to do whatever it takes to survive, even if that means employing extreme violence/skills they have no experience with. The story sets up an intriguing experiment about the desire to escape vs. fight back in life-threatening situations and has something insights into the human instinct and capacity for violence.
"Green Room" gets confusing at times and the characters embody attitudes and decision-making traits more so than complete people with motivations other than "not dying." It's a step up from the way most horror movies treat their characters, but not all that different. The difference lies in the craftsmanship, the stories foreboding and realistic premise and that gore, to Saulnier, is a means (and necessary consequence) of exploring the psyche.
~Steven C
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