By Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier’s Blue Ruin was an exceptionally made, critically acclaimed revenge thriller that drew comparisons to the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple. It was one of my favorite movies released in 2014.
For a follow-up, it looks like Saulnier’s knocked it out again with the intense-looking standoff thriller Green Room, which stars Anton Yelchin, Patrick Stewart, Imogen Poots, and Alia Shawkat.
The red band trailer for the film was just released today, and while it uses the “ominous cover of a classic song” trailer trope, it does so to great effect. Here it is:
I was just talking to Flixist Features Editor Alec Kubas-Meyer about Green Room last week and how it was one of his most anticipated films of the year. Based on the trailer and what Saulnier did with Blue Ruin, I can see why.
Here’s an official synopsis for Green Room:
Green Room is a brilliantly crafted and wickedly fun horror-thriller starring Patrick Stewart as a diabolical club owner who squares off against an unsuspecting but resilient young punk band. Down on their luck punk rockers The Ain’t Rights are finishing up a long and unsuccessful tour, and are about to call it quits when they get an unexpected booking at an isolated, run-down club deep in the backwoods of Oregon. What seems merely to be a third-rate gig escalates into something much more sinister when they witness an act of violence backstage that they weren’t meant to see. Now trapped backstage, they must face off against the club’s depraved owner, Darcy Banker (Stewart), a man who will do anything to protect the secrets of his nefarious enterprise. But while Darcy and his henchmen think the band will be easy to get rid of, The Ain’t Rights prove themselves much more cunning and capable than anyone expected, turning the tables on their unsuspecting captors and setting the stage for the ultimate life-or-death showdown. Intense, emotional, and ingeniously twisted, Green Room is genre filmmaking at its best and most original. Saulnier continues to build his reputation as one of the most exciting and distinctive directors working today, with a movie that’s completely different from his previous, highly acclaimed Blue Ruin, but which is just as risk-taking and even more full of twists. The entire cast deliver first-rate performances, but Patrick Stewart gives a transformative and brilliantly devious turn as Darcy–elegant yet lethal, droll yet terrifying, Stewart makes the film simply unforgettable.
Green Room opens in New York and Los Angeles on April 15th, expanding nationwide on April 29th. The poster for Green Room is in the gallery.
