When Jeremy Saulnier made Blue Ruin he showed that he has
the chops to make specific and very driven visions which are both familiar and
deeply authentic. In Green Room, Saulnier got a chance to try and catch that
AAA production wave and make a horror thriller with a great cast and a very
original (yet easily relatable) setup.
Immediately, it’s clear that he successfully resisted all
the temptations that mostly boil down to dumbing down of his vision. In the
process, he didn’t quite make a perfect masterpiece which Blue Ruin (almost) is
but still showed that he’s a force for the future of a type that is sorely
needed. Often labeled in other reviews and media in general as punks
vs. neo-Nazis, Green Room basically is this – after they book a gig at the
wrong club in the woods and there open a wrong door, a DIY punk band ends up
being under siege by a gang of murdering white supremacists.