Spoilers are putting the band back together.

When you’re a traveling band that nobody has heard of, you gotta play any gig you can find. That being said, there are a few places that definitely need more than your regular disclaimer. Even for starving musicians, some stages might be too radical to perform unscathed. Unfortunately, there are some aspects of this film are not as quite improbable as we’d wish.

(Credit: A24)

Green Room (2015) was written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier. The “Ain’t Right” band made of  Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner) are used to life on the road inside their van and barely get through making ends meet playing gigs anywhere they find. Unable to turn away anything they end up playing a bar that caters to neo-Nazis. Just as they’re readying to leave, Pat stumbles onto a scene where a girl has been murdered. The band ends up trapped in a room with Amber (Imogen Poots) and with a group of neo-Nazis at the door.

Let’s be honest. Everything in this movie can go sideways and does. This is the kind of scenario you prevent rather than solve. There are no easy solutions for the “Ain’t Right” band and once the bar personnel call their boss Darcy (Patrick Stewart) it seems like all easy escape exits disappear. Things go from bad to worse as trained dogs are brought in. This is a very tense, violent and gory film. Nobody is getting away unharmed and bodies will pile up.

It’s not a slasher film per se. In this one, everyone makes mistakes, everyone is scared of getting hurt and casualties will happen on both sides. Adrenaline is running high because each side has a lot at stake, but nobody here is a martial arts fighter or an ex-marine. Everyone fights and gets hurt, cut, bruised and shows it in the next scene. Patrick Stewart as the bad guy does have his moments in which he is legitimately intimidating, but it’s really hard to accept him as the bad guy although he never breaks character.

Recommended with one reservation. I can’t stand to see animals being used as killers. I know it’s a film but even when it’s implied it still bothers me nonetheless. That being said, it’s obviously the bad guys doing it, and the animals are not portrayed as devils. The tension is kept up throughout the film and it strongly delivers on gore and violence. If you’re a fan of white-knuckle thrillers you might want to give this one a go.

That will do for now.