“Knives and Fangs” Green Room (2015)
Trapped within four cold walls, the wolves scratch at the door, there is no way out. Though it may sound like the lyrics to a rage-flailing track performed by a local basement band, the previous statement is meant to capture the aura of dread that director Jeremy Saulnier instills in his viewers with Green Room. This ring-fisted, razor-edged film is the most recent brushstroke in what many critics believe will one day be the bloody masterpiece portrait that is Saulnier’s directorial body of work. Much like punk music itself, his movie displays a confident feistiness that can only come from a keen recognition of the field at large and the decision to stand apart from it. The film’s toughness is not just the sum total of its eye-catching adornments, though it is certainly enhanced by them; rather, its brute strength resonates from a deeply harbored “Screw you, deal with it” philosophy.
Amidst an apparent resurgence of Bond-like movie villains and doomsday operas, Green Room selects the controlled intimacy of a box cutter over the maniacal grandiosity of a primed pack of semtex. It’s a lean story and its consequences remain clear for the characters and audience alike: a D.C. suburb anti-establishment punk group runs dangerously afoul of Portland’s metal-head white supremacist group. One would likely never consider crashing a van into a cornfield to be the smallest obstacle encountered in one’s day, but for The Ain’t Rights the produce on their windshield is by far the least of their concerns. At the concert venue, the bandmates face a gauntlet of physical and psychological assaults while trying to overcome the claustrophobic feeling that they are no longer the conductors of their own fate. Wicked men wish to do the band harm, and though they are desperate and inexperienced, the kids are also quite resourceful: paint will fly. But will it be enough to survive the night? The Ain’t Rights are pretty rational and coherent but their foe is not your average slasher. Saulnier, who doubles as the film’s screenwriter, has surpassed the commonness of horror tropes to deliver a glimpse into what one character so glibly refers to as “Hell.”
Authentic is perhaps the single best word to describe the quality of Saulnier’s film; it has little time for garishness or ceremony, it is all about precise execution. Absent from the script are firearms spewing endless amounts of ammunition or indestructible protagonists who shirk off shrapnel like spider webs. It is the ultimate “Chekov’s Gun” film where every shot counts and is audibly counted by the characters. People hurt each other and do so face-to-face, one at a time. Perhaps this is the film’s greatest recipe for success, a believability brought about by small but visceral violence. Green Room does not aggrandize physical punishment yet it also does not turn its eyes away from the horror. The film does so much more than dangle the knife in front of your eyes; it demonstrates just how deadly sharp that blade really is.
