Review of Green Room (2016) by Daniel P — 16 Jul 2016

2016 has already churned out some of the most quality horror films in a decade, and GREEN ROOM may just sit atop the year's list of the most honest and blunt in-your-face terror flick. What separates Green Room from - oh I don't know, just about everyone other horror film that plays off of the "survival-mode" trope is that it doesn't ever pretend to be more clever than its audience, and it doesn't aim to disturb you with heaps of torture/gore material.That's not to say there aren't nightmare-inducing moments that make you think twice on eating anymore food for a few hours. (Think of a certain Evil Dead film where Bruce's appendage is replaced with a cartoon-ish weapon...now imagine seeing that with amazing production value and there is not, "replacement limb/weapon," just DUCK TAPE).

While top movie critics are swooning over Patrick Stewart's menacing turn as the relentlessly sadistic Darcy, I found Anton Yelton to be the more interesting actor to watch in this backwoods hillbilly heroin standoff that makes Deliverance look like The Lego Movie. Yelton has a raspy and understated knack for drawing a likeability as he quickly develops the character we must either empathize with or act indifferent when he is subjected to terrifying levels of pain that Eli Roth would salivate at seeing. It is how Yelton's realistic portrayal of what the process of our "fight of flight" mechanism kicking in entails - and we can see the the gears turning in his mind as he quickly appreciates the hand they've been dealt as well as the odds of survival. It's this kind of punk-rock mentality that is layered throughout the the 90 minute fright flick; where the real punk rockers show their mettle, and the others die trying.