Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Green Room Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 9, 2016

The “glamour” of show business maybe finds one of its more generally misunderstood terms with regard to a so-called “green room”, a waiting area of sorts which is frequently not only not green but just as frequently barely big enough to really be accurately considered an actual room. Green Room doesn’t much care about the fineries of the so-called “entertainment industry”, at least insofar as it’s apprehended by the public at large, and instead exploits a gritty, unvarnished and ultimately downright frightening universe that is centered both around the punk rock scene and skinhead groups. The titular place is indeed a waiting area, but it’s a dirty, unkempt region of an equally dilapidated locale where a punk rock concert is being held to entertain the “troops”, in this case jackboot wearing thugs who are obviously white supremacists and who just may be running a little heroin operation on the side. When the band at the center of the film inadvertently witnesses the aftermath of a horrific murder, they’re held captive more or less in the confined space, as various machinations outside unfold as the club’s owner, Darcy (Patrick Stewart), decides how to best handle the situation. Things are no better inside, however, with one of the Darcy’s henchmen stuck in the room with the band, along with another interloper who was a friend of the victim, and tensions between all the inhabitants reaching a boiling point in short order. Green Room is the brainchild of Jeremy Saulnier, the same writer-director who created Blue Ruin (which may lead some wags to wonder whether he’s planning on pulling a Three Colors trifecta). Saulnier is on hand in a supplement mentioning how after Blue Ruin he really didn’t want to do another ensemble piece confined (largely) to a single space, but that’s exactly what Green Room is. The film is often squirm inducing, due to both some visceral special effects work regarding some of the injuries doled out, but also due to an increasingly claustrophobic emotional ambience that is only exacerbated by the incessant thumping of punk rock that’s supposedly emanating from the nearby performance space. Green Room may also now sadly attract unexpected viewers due to the recent passing of its star, Anton Yelchin (Star Trek 4K), a promising young actor whose life and career were cut short recently in an almost unimaginable accident involving his own (apparently recalled) Jeep.

Before Green Room gets to its questionably colored main location, some introductory scenes offer up quick vignettes of the hardscrabble “tour” (if it can even be called that) of the Ain’t Rights, a punk rock aggregation which is wending its way through the Pacific Northwest in their funky van, one which frequently runs out of gas, necessitating various band members pilfering petrol from any cars they can find, since they (as any self- respecting musician) don’t have any money to speak of. Some online sources detail an early scene as taking place in Seaside, Oregon, but to this Oregonian, it sure looks a lot more like Astoria, a gorgeous little town at the mouth of the Columbia River where it meets the Pacific Ocean. One way or the other, a planned on gig has evaporated, though Tad (David W. Thompson), the guy supposedly offering them the work, manages to come up with a “consolation prize” of sorts, playing a skinhead “festival” nearer to Portland. (Again, as an Oregonian, I found this part of the film a little distasteful, as Portland’s vaunted “keep (us) weird” ethos is not exactly tolerant of any sort of hate group, though it’s notable that one very highly publicized white supremacist fueled killing did take place here decades ago.)

The bulk of Green Room plays out as a kind of cat and mouse game between the band members, all of whom are struggling to find some sort of “hidden” escape route from their surrounded location, and Darcy and his thugs, who are just as intent on getting inside to “erase” the threat of witnesses. There’s a little vagueness about what exactly is going on in the early moments, when the murder is apparently covered up by one of the henchmen for reasons that initially seem to be connected to the fact that the group is comprised of skinheads. That turns out to be a bit of misdirection, but the upshot is the same, with band member Pat (Anton Yelchin) and apparently innocent bystander Amber (Imogen Poots) ending up as the focal couple, especially as a gruesomely increasing body count begins to accrue.

While some elements of Green Room are relatively rote, at least within the confines of a “traditional” horror film tied to a “pick ‘em off one by one” approach, the general context of the film is so unusual and viscerally presented that a lot of the story tends to resonate in rather remarkable ways. While there are some passing tips of the Freudian hat toward psychological underpinnings (an especially chilling moment comes when the killer “confesses” to the band that it was their music that drove him to his act), Green Room frankly isn’t all that interested in exploring the interior world of its characters. That might have been an insurmountable obstacle in a more mundane setting, but here the surface is compelling enough that viewers can almost intuitively discern the needed subtext.

Those interested may want to read my interview with Green Room's dialect coach Mary McDonald-Lewis here.

Green Room Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Green Room is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The IMDb lists the film as having been digitally shot with Arri Alexa cameras and finished at a 2K DI. This film exhibits some of the same tendencies I mentioned in our recent The Adderall Diaries Blu-ray review, where a generally sharp and well detailed basic capture is undermined by a dark, dank and dingy overall ambience. It's probably even more pronounced in Green Room courtesy of the gray, rainy climes outside and a very dimly lit interior space where vast swaths of the film play out. All of this means that detail levels are often fairly tamped down, even in close-ups, with a general murk overlaying several scenes that adds at least the perception of softness. Occasional light dustings of noise intrude, but are never overly problematic.

Green Room Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Green Room's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is an understandably raucous affair that has some booming LFE courtesy of the near constant punk music that plays throughout the film. There's some really nice spatial differentiation and attention paid to differing ambiences when, for example, the door to the green room opens. Despite the onslaught of punk that plays, especially in the early going, there's still some nice discrete placement of various effects within the room. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and is generally well prioritized, though a couple of lines during band performances are buried under the general landslide of sound.

Green Room Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Jeremy Saulnier


• Into the Pit: Making Green Room (1080p; 9:58) is a decent EPK, but will bring a smile to the lips of Pacific Northwesterners as a number of the cast and crew (including Sir Patrick) lament our often rainy weather. Hey, go to Hollywood if you want skin cancer.

Green Room Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Green Room's unusual setting provides most of the interest in what boils down to more traditional horror fare at its base level. Performances are generally riveting, especially Stewart as a ne'er-do-well who is miles—indeed, universes—away from a certain Jean-Luc Picard. Technical merits are very good (video) to excellent (audio), and for those with a tolerance for some pretty gruesome violence, Green Room comes Recommended.