Green Room (2015)

IMDb plot summary: After witnessing a murder, a punk rock band is forced into a vicious fight for survival against a group of maniacal skinheads.
Directed by Jeremy Saulnier. Starring Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Patrick Stewart, and Mark Webber.

(Spoilers ahead.)

I think the people who saw this movie and recommended it to me saw it very differently than I did, not necessarily in terms of quality - I thought it was good - but in terms of what kind of movie it actually was. It was sold to me as a low-budget disturbing psychological horror flick. I was picturing something like Bug or It Follows, something with slow creeping tension. Instead, it was more reminiscent of a one-room thriller like Panic Room. I kept waiting to be scared, and while the suspense was definitely there, it wasn't chilling or scary the way I'd been led to expect.

All that being said, though, it's a *good* mostly-one-room thriller. It takes awhile for any of the characters to take on a personality, and a few of them die off long before I cared who they were, but by the end of the movie you're emotionally invested in the remaining survivors. I was also intrigued by the cinematography, which featured shots more reminiscent of visually stunning artistic dramas than thriller/horror. Interesting and worth a watch, but not anything that blew me away.

3 stars.

How it entered my Flickchart:
Green Room > A Little Night Music
Green Room < The Artist
Green Room < Laura
Green Room < Die Hard
Green Room > My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Green Room > Kiki's Delivery Service
Green Room > Cinema Paradiso
Green Room > Killing Season
Green Room > To Rome With Love
Green Room > Short Circuit
Green Room < Cast Away

Final spot: #1074 out of 2452.