Green Room (film)

Pat, Sam, Reece and Tiger are members of a punk band, the Ain't Rights, traveling through the Pacific Northwest. After their gig is cancelled, a local radio host, Tad, arranges a show through his cousin, Daniel, at a neo-Nazi skinhead bar in the woods outside Portland, opening for the Nazi metal band Cowcatcher. After the show, Pat returns to the green room to retrieve Sam's phone. He sees the body of a woman, Emily, who has been stabbed to death by Werm, a member of Cowcatcher. Pat calls the police, but the bar employees Gabe and Big Justin confiscate the band's phones and hold them captive in the green room. Gabe pays a skinhead to stab another to create a cover story for the police who respond to the call. He consults with the bar owner and skinhead leader, Darcy, who decides to gift Cowcatcher with poisoned drugs and kill the band to eliminate witnesses. The band overpowers Big Justin and holds him hostage, taking a box cutter from his pocket and his pistol. They negotiate through the door with Darcy, who asks them to surrender the pistol. Pat agrees, but as he opens the door, Emily's friend Amber realizes it is a trap. Darcy and his men slash at Pat's arm and partially sever his hand with machetes until he drops the gun, but he closes the door. Big Justin attacks the band, but Reece chokes him into unconsciousness. When Big Justin surprises Reece by awaking again, Reece chokes Big Justin again and Amber cuts him with the box cutter to ensure that he is dead. Searching for a way out, the band discovers an underground drug lab, but the only exit is locked from the outside. Arming themselves with improvised weapons, they exit the green room into the empty club. A skinhead, Clark, unleashes an attack dog, which kills Tiger. Amber and Pat drive the dog away with microphone feedback. Reece flees through a window, but is murdered by a skinhead. Pat, Amber, and Sam retreat to the green room. Darcy sends Daniel into the club to kill the band, who Darcy claims murdered Emily. Amber tells Daniel that Werm murdered Emily after discovering Daniel and Emily planned to leave the skinheads. Daniel agrees to help them escape and leads the band into the club, where he is shot dead by the bartender. The group kills the bartender and takes his shotgun, but Clark's dog kills Sam. Darcy's men wound Amber, who retreats to the green room with Pat. Darcy sends skinheads Jonathan and Kyle with Gabe to kill Pat and Amber, and he leaves with the bodies, planning to stage their deaths to appear as though they were killed while trespassing. Pat lures Jonathan into the drug lab while Kyle remains in the green room. Amber ambushes Kyle and cuts his throat with the box cutter. As Pat fights Jonathan, Amber sneaks up and shoots him. Gabe then surrenders to Pat and Amber. Holding Gabe at gunpoint, the group trek through the woods. When Pat hears Darcy and his men staging the deaths, he and Amber go after them. Gabe volunteers to go into a farm and call the police. Pat and Amber kill Clark and another skinhead. Fleeing, Darcy pulls a revolver from his jacket but is shot dead by Pat and Amber. The two sit on the side of the road and wait for the police. ==Cast==

The film came from Saulnier's desire to create a thriller set in a green room, calling the idea "an obsession". Although the film features a large amount of violence and what Saulnier calls "full frontal gore", he has gone on record as stating that it is not "sadistic", and that every act of violence apart from the initiating incident is done with a reason. On May 22, 2014, it was announced that Broad Green Pictures would finance and produce the film directed and written by Jeremy Saulnier, with Film Science. Anish Savjani, Neil Kopp and Victor Moyers would produce the film. On October 21, Patrick Stewart was added to the cast to play Darcy Banker, the leader of a violent white supremacist group, while other cast includes Kai Lennox, Eric Edelstein and Taylor Tunes. The location for Tad's house was in Astoria, Oregon, on the Oregon coast, and the forest scenes were filmed in the Mount Hood National Forest. Filming concluded in late November 2014. Music Saulnier, who used to play in a hardcore punk band called No Turn on Fred, wanted the film to "stand the test of real musicians scrutinizing every frame". He enlisted Hutch Harris of American indie rock band The Thermals to teach the actors the musical parts that they would be performing onscreen. The film's soundtrack is largely populated by heavy metal artists like Midnight rather than white nationalist bands. Saulnier says that he wanted the club to have more of a Motörhead-like atmosphere, and that he had no intention of financially supporting white nationalist artists. In addition to the songs appearing on the soundtrack, Green Room features several other punk and metal tracks, including Fear's "Legalize Drugs" (1995), Napalm Death's "Suffer the Children" (1990), Obituary's "Paralyzed with Fear" (2014), Poison Idea's "Taken By Surprise" (1990), Slayer's "War Ensemble" (1990), and Bad Brains' "Right Brigade" (1982). ==Release==

at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival premiere of Green Room. It was his last feature film released while he was alive. On October 29, 2014, WestEnd Films acquired the international rights to the film. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2015. The film screened on opening night of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, on September 10, 2015. The film was originally to open in a limited release on April 1, 2016, before opening in a wide release on April 15, 2016. However, it was moved to April 15, in limited release, and May 13 wide. The end credits of the film's home media and subsequent releases feature an addended dedication to the memory of star Yelchin, who died on June 19, 2016. ==Reception==

Box office Green Room opened at #30 in its limited release, premiering in 3 theaters, earning $87,984. In its official wide release, the film premiered at 777 theaters, taking the #16 rank on opening weekend, and grossing $547,031 in North America. Critical response On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 250 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Green Room delivers unapologetic genre thrills with uncommon intelligence and powerfully acted élan." Metacritic gave it a weighted average score of 79 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times praised Patrick Stewart, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat and Macon Blair's performances and called the film "a wonderfully nasty, gruesome, jagged-edge gem of a horror film" that has "first-rate" cinematography, set design, soundtrack, and editing. Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail awarded it a full four stars and wrote, "Jeremy Saulnier (Murder Party, Blue Ruin) continues one of the best streaks in independent horror with this terrifying and inventive thriller." Lenika Cruz of The Atlantic said it's "a tense gore-fest, one that’s as grimy and claustrophobic as the titular room. But scrape off the scum, and you’ll find Green Room full of visual artistry, dark humor, smart writing, and glints of humanity". IGN awarded it a score of 9 out of 10, saying, "This follow-up to the brilliant Blue Ruin pits a rock band against white supremacists with ace, ultra-violent results." Jeffrey Bloomer of Slate favorably compared the film's "genre maturity", "amoral survivalism and malleable sense of good and evil", "brutal efficiency" and "weary humor" to John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 and praised the cast, writing "If the world knows any justice[...] then the Screen Actors Guild will remember this cast when it doles out its awards next year". James Berardinelli concludes the film is "for anyone who enjoys sitting through 90 tense minutes and feeling the attendant adrenaline rush. It’s like a well-constructed horror movie" that's "As intimate as it is unnerving". Guy Lodge of Variety called it "a technically sharp backwoods horror-thriller that lacks a human element". Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it's entertaining but "less disciplined, less original and less memorable work than Blue Ruin". Top ten lists Green Room was listed on many film critics' top ten yearly lists. • 2nd – Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly • 3rd – Nick Schager, Esquire • 3rd – Jesse Hassenger, The A.V. Club • 4th – Eric D. Snider, Salt Lake City Weekly • 4th – A.A. Dowd, The A.V. Club • 4th – Katie Rife, The A.V. Club • 4th – Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects • 5th – Steve Davis, The Austin Chronicle • 5th – Noel Murray, The A.V. Club • 5th – Jacob Oller, RogerEbert.com • 5th – Alan Zilberman, RogerEbert.com • 6th – Andrew Wright, Salt Lake City Weekly • 6th – Mark Dujsik, RogerEbert.com • 7th – Marc Doyle, Metacritic • 7th – Haleigh Foutch, Collider • 7th – Jen Yamato, The Daily Beast • 7th – Sean Mulvihill, RogerEbert.com • 8th – David Chen, /Film • 8th – Jacob Hall, /Film • 9th – Josh Kupecki, The Austin Chronicle • 9th – Robert Horton, Seattle Weekly • 9th – Jason Bailey, Flavorwire • 10th – Vince Mancini, Uproxx Accolades ==References==