Pat, Sam, Reece and Tiger are members of a punk band, the Ain't Rights, travelling 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 girl, 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 kill the band to eliminate witnesses.
The band overpowers Big Justin and holds him hostage, taking a boxcutter 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 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 a boxcutter to confirm 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 hacked to death 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 scrambles back to the green room with Pat.
Darcy sends the skinheads Jonathan and Kyle to kill Pat and Amber, and he leaves with the bodies, planning to stage their deaths to appear as if they were killed trespassing. Pat lures Jonathan into the drug lab while Kyle remains in the green room. Amber ambushes Kyle and cuts his throat with the boxcutter. As Pat fights Jonathan, Amber sneaks up and shoots him. Gabe enters the green room to find his companions dead and surrenders to Pat and Amber.
Holding Gabe at gunpoint, the group trek through the woods. When Pat hears Darcy and his men staging the crime scene, 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. Pat and Amber sit on the side of the road and wait for the police.
Cast
Anton Yelchin as Pat, the bassist of the Ain't Rights
Taylor Tunes as Emily, a skinhead and Amber's friend
Samuel Summer as Jonathan, a skinhead
Mason Knight as Kyle, a skinhead
Colton Ruscheinsky as Alan, a skinhead
Jacob Kasch as the bartender
Thomas Bell as man with cell phone
Production
The film came from Saulnier's desire to create a thriller set in a green room, calling the idea "an obsession".[10] Saulnier created a short film set in one as part of a 48-hour film challenge in 2007 which involved the supernatural and according to Saulnier was "Really kind of fun and hammy." However, he still wanted a chance to do his green room movie "the right way".[10] 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.[11] As such Saulnier made sure that there were no "gratuitous close ups" of recently deceased characters.[11]
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.[12] Anish Savjani, Neil Kopp and Victor Moyers would produce the film.[12] On October 16, Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots joined the lead cast of the film, along with Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, Joe Cole, Macon Blair and Mark Webber.[13] On October 21, Patrick Stewart was added to the cast to play Darcy Banker, the leader of a violent white supremacist group,[14] while other cast includes Kai Lennox, Eric Edelstein and Taylor Tunes.[14]
Saulnier, who used to play in a hardcore punk band called No Turn on Fred,[19] wanted the film to "stand the test of real musicians scrutinizing every frame".[20] He enlisted Hutch Harris of American indie rock band The Thermals to teach the actors the musical parts that they would be performing onscreen.[21] 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.[22]
On October 29, 2014, WestEnd Films acquired the international rights to the film.[25] The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2015.[6] Shortly after, it was announced A24 had acquired distribution rights to the film.[26] The film screened on opening night of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, on September 10, 2015.[27]
The film was originally to open in a limited release on April 1, 2016, before opening in a wide release on April 15, 2016.[28] However, it was moved to April 15, in limited release, and May 13 wide.[9]
Home media
Lionsgate, as the home media distributor of A24 releases, released Green Room on Blu-ray and DVD on July 12, 2016.[29] 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.[30]
Reception
Box office
According to Box Office Mojo, Green Room opened at #30 in its limited release, premiering in 3 theaters, culminating over $87,984. In its official wide release, the film premiered at 777 theaters, taking the #16 rank on opening weekend, and grossing more than $411,376.[4]
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."[31]Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 79 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[32]
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.[33] 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."[34] 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".[35]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."[36]
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".[37]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".[38] Guy Lodge of Variety called it "a technically sharp backwoods horror-thriller that lacks a human element".[6] Leslie Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that it's entertaining but "less disciplined, less original and less memorable work than Blue Ruin".[39]
Top ten lists
Green Room was listed on many film critics' top ten lists.[40]
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