Review of Green Room (2016) by Anthony K — 05 Feb 2017

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes my opinion of a movie can make a sharp change within the first few hours of having seen it. Such is the case with Green Room. Not much of change in the grand scheme of things, but it did take a shift from liking it, to loving it.

What really did it for me is some of the things I saw as flaws while I was watching the movie found their place when I thought about it. Its simplicity, its genre moments, and the often stupid decisions by its characters.

Green Room is, I feel, an elevated genre film. A claustrophobic horror/thriller done with an artistic flair. Its characters made stupid decisions sometimes, but they have to for this type of film. I got mad at them and yelled at the TV, but it wasn't in a hateful way, it was in a fun way.

That's the thing, I had fun with this movie. It's thrilling and immensely engaging. It's similar to other films of this type (Vacancy comes to mind) but it works better than those sorts of films with a sort of independent style and level of realism.

When characters die, it's sudden and shocking. The world they live in feels real. Not to mention it's just a great looking film. It has dream-like almost nightmarish style with tense fog and green overcast throughout.

The actors all do great too. Anton Yelchin again shows how underrated a performer he was. I really feel like this guy was just one big role away from hitting the A-list, and it's a shame he never got it.

Then there's Patrick Stewart, who plays a villainous role with the charm and charisma you get from anything he shows up in. He's the type of character who could say he's going to kill you, and make it sound like a reasonable request.

Bottom line, Green Room is an almost perfect film of its type. It's simple, knows what it's supposed to do, and goes out and does it with no apologies.