It's effective but often overly repetitive.

Rating: 6/10 (6 July 2016)

Every heard of 'The Thing' or '12 Angry Men'? Or any movie that this based mostly inside of a very confined space? Well add 'Green Room' to that short list. The film is about a heavy metal band that is on tour trying to promote their image. Right away these people aren't really that likable. They are seen siphoning gas within the first ten minutes and immediately I was angry at these people. As we follow these characters along, they travel to play at a rather underground bar. After their set they find that one of the other bands members before them was murdered in cold blood. As a means of protecting themselves the bars staff traps the witnesses in a room.
Obviously things go south and a lot of people die. This movie reminded me of 'The Raid' as I watched it. Not because there is kung fu in it or anything, but because you really have no clue who is going to live or die. Putting everyone on the chopping block really lets you experience this movie as best as you can.
It created very real tension that carried through out the entire film. To make it even more believable, the action is incredibly gritty. Machetes get involved, guns, box cutters, fire extinguishers, the whole deal. If something could be used as a weapon it was. This really grounded the movie in reality despite is surreal premise.
It also helped that many of the actors are fairly unknown. Of course there's the girl from 'Arrested Development' and a couple guys from 'Star Trek' but other than that, it was mainly people I didn't recognize. I know this is a weird thing to bring up but it helped me further believe that this could happen to people without anyone's knowledge.
However, the movie has a hard time getting all this going. The first half in general has a really hard time getting going. Hardly anything happens during that initial forty five minutes and there really isn't any characters to get invested in. So when a bunch of people you don't know much about do nothing for an hour, it can really test ones patience.
In that first half there wasn't hardly anything that was impressive. You might call it build up to the bloody finale but I call it boring nothing. If that initial forty five minutes was cut in half there wouldn't be any problem. Whats even more disappointing was even in the best moments this movie had failures. Even when the blood is coating the walls, things got a bit tedious.
Mainly because it gets so repetitive. They charge out of their room, people die, and they retreat back. This happens over and over again until the film ends. Of course the tension and grittiness carries us through these scenes but when things get that repetitive than it becomes more and more easy to notice other shortcomings.
So far this movie is on the better end of horror movies for 2016. It's real, raw, and incredibly tense. Throw in a couple great performances and what you should've had is a great movie. But due to an overlong and dull opening half plus a repetitive second half things can get rather stale. If you're a horror fan, this movie will be a lot of fun to watch. If not than don't bother with 'Green Room'.