In “Green Room,” writer-director Jeremy Saulnier conceives a taut-if-thin thriller premise and sustains it for an entire feature through sheer directorial skill.
A punk band (Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat and others) holes up in the dressing room after encountering the aftermath of a murder following a performance at a neo-Nazi Oregon club, while the owner (Patrick Stewart) tries to draw them out with the aid of his violent minions.
The movie luxuriates in the musty, backwoods atmosphere, with uncompromising graphic bloodshed and suspense constructed out of the basic realities of what this situation might entail rather than flights of screenwriting fancy.
It’s a suspenseful horror show set largely in a single room, in a single structure, that derives its entertainment value out of a matter-of-fact dissection of the predicament with each cut meticulously structured to keep you in Saulnier’s grip.
Green Room
Directed by Jeremy Saulnier
Starring Anton Yelchin, Patrick Stewart, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat
