Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Green Room

Whenever you put punk bands and skinheads in the same room, you’re typically setting yourself up for a night full of trouble. It will always end with banjo music and squealing of some kind coming from a dark room in the back when you mix aggressive music about hating your parents and angry white bald dudes who think that the big chested girl from The Waterboy is hot (that’s an American History X reference btw). Why do you think I left country Texas as quickly as I did? The second some of my short haired Caucasian friends realized that I liked the Stone Temple Pilots, they started giving me the eye after having a few beers. Ok, so that last part isn’t true but after spending 18 years of my life in a small town, I figured it was just a matter of time before someone tried to attack me A Time to Kill style. You can only outrun the odds for so long!

Anyway, I love movies with fake bands! I would totally go see Sex Bob-Omb from Scott Pilgrim and Soronpffbs from Frank (the movie with the guy that wears a big fake head) mainly because that kind of weird music is right up my alley. And even though the punk band in Green Room sucks, they were just good enough for me to risk hiding in the back of a skinhead bar to check them out too, which goes to show that my affinity for obscure music knows no bounds!

So Green Room is about this young punk band who’s on the tail end of their tour. The tour itself hasn’t gone all that well as they find themselves having to siphon gas from other cars just to make it from gig to gig. But they remain undeterred as they generally enjoy each other’s company while drinking, camping in the woods, and discussing classic rock bands. Well one of their last shows and interviews gets cancelled because their hookup no longer works for the promotion company that originally set it up, so in an attempt to make it up to them he hooks them with up with a show playing a dive bar that just so happens to be full of skinheads. They know the deal going in but decide to do it anyway because it’s a halfway decent payday.

However from the very second they pull up to the venue they’re completely uncomfortable with the situation as everyone just has this look of total disdain on their face. And it doesn’t help matters that they’re all looking at their female bass player sideways because she looks like she could be Jewish. They press on however and make it through their set, even after playing a sort of "F you" song to the crowd at the onset. And everything seems to be going ok until they witness a murder in the green room just as they’re about to leave.

From that moment on, they are held hostage by the bar’s manager until he and the owner can figure out how to properly handle the situation. Well as you can imagine, their eventual solution doesn’t work in the favor of the band and they are forced to fight for their lives as they try and escape. Now keep in mind that this all takes place in the woods of Oregon so the chances of them getting help from anyone remotely normal is fairly low.

On the surface this sounds like your run of the mill "fighting off weird hicks" horror flick but trust me when I say that this film gets a little darker than what you’re accustomed to. The director pulls no punches when it comes to the brutality of the situation. He by no means resorts to gore porn or anything like that but just know that attack dogs mauling people to death, shotgun blasts to the head, and the carving up of body parts via knives or any sharp object for that matter are all fair game.

The trapped band members handle the situation like any normal person with above average intelligence would and that’s what’s refreshing about this film. It never succumbs to the cliché’s that have almost killed, no pun intended, this genre. Oh and just know that they take the George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones) route in that no one is safe, so don’t think that this film will have the usual Hollywood ending. You want to trust Sir Patrick Stewart because he’s the captain on the Starship Enterprise but in the end all he is, is another evil manipulative and parasitic skinhead leader. He’s great in his role but you could totally tell that this was the first time he’s ever said the word nigger in his life.

I rate this movie as FRESH and suggest you pop in.

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