Jeremy Saulnier – We Are Movie Geeks

HOLD THE DARK – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Behind every bloodsoaked frame of the four features of Jeremy Saulnier there’s something deeper, darker to be explored. Saulnier, the man behind Murder Party (2007), Blue Ruin (2013), and Green Room (2015), has become an extremely reliable and continually interesting source for genre entertainment. He makes gore films that analyze the trappings of gore films, how the power fantasies of our innate desire for bloodshed can be contrasted with the cultural myths that we somehow believe. His first feature Murder Party explored the way that cultural elitism in itself is a type of violence towards people, Blue Ruin explored the way that cycles of violence prompted by murder and revenge can only lead to darker more desolate outcomes, and Green Room explored the purity of the artistic endeavour contrasted with the violent, hypocritical, masochistic ideology of Neo-Nazism. Now, Hold the Dark has appeared on Netflix to provide a next chapter in this blood-soaked exploration of our beliefs, presenting the hypothesis that the myth of familial kindness, the myth of the frontiersman or imperialist passing on anything but psychopathy to their children is false.

Hold the Dark comes to us courtesy of Saulnier and his good friend/writing partner Macon Blair (who released the excellent I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore last year), and Hold the Dark is their darkest exploration to date. Russell Core (played by an always sublime Jeffrey Wright) is called out to the remote town Keelut in Alaska by a grieving mother (Riley Keough). She’s sure that the wolves of the area have taken her son, sure that he’s been eaten. Core soon realizes that there’s something deeper going on, something more sinister and as the mystery unravels we are subjected to the moral question of whether or not a righteous kill can ever be that.

The strength of Hold the Dark comes in its length. It is a languid experience, dragging you into the cold and leaving you there, but only in the best way possible. The longer that Saulnier and Blair let you sit in the horror of it all, the longer the moral question of the piece sits in your head, the more connected to the characters you become. Given the fact that Saulnier is working with some of the best actors right now, the longer that he allows us to luxuriate in their faces, the better the movie gets. Hold the Dark is the type of film that is playing expressly in the realm of theme so the overall storytelling here doesn’t sway realistic. Therefore, by embracing the performances (and the great direction) the film succeeds to be a brutalistic and beautiful experience. It helps that, again, Saulnier is firing on all cylinders (pun intended). He has always been a genius at staging gory action and setting up situations for his characters to barely live through and here that is more than the case. The Alaskan wilderness provides the perfect backdrop for some surprising and terrifying action and as usual this action only bolsters the deeper themes.

The environment in Hold the Dark is used in much the same as it is in Wind River (though I’d argue that while that movie hoped for sympathy, Saulnier and Blair leave that at the door here), in that the brutal cold of the area, the remoteness traps people in and alters their minds. This eventually leads into the crux of the piece, whether or not it is easy to kill something. Whether or not, even in the context of good, a living being is allowed to die. This, as well as the aforementioned familial kindness thing (that would constitute a spoiler so I’ll not elaborate), allow Hold the Dark to carry more weight than any of Saulnier’s work. Sometimes too much. At times the brutal, unfeeling nature of the thing is a little bit overwhelming, cancelling out the drama onscreen. This doesn’t happen often though and often finds itself being later redeemed by a new, richer, scene.

Hold the Dark probably isn’t one of the best films of the year but it is a phenomenally bitter, violent work. It doesn’t reach the heights of Saulnier’s previous efforts but that’s not saying much. It still manages to move and explore just as effectively.

4 out of 5 Stars

HOLD THE DARK is currently streaming on Netflix

WAMG Giveaway – Win the Blu-ray of GREEN ROOM

Spike your hair, throw on your combat boots, and get ready to dive into the mosh pit when the brilliantly crafted thriller Green Room hits Blu-ray (plus Digital HD) and DVD (plus Digital) July 12 from Lionsgate. Theatrically released by A24, and written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier (who achieved critical success with Blue Ruin), Green Room is a film that critics are calling “the best screw-tightening siege movie of the year” (Rolling Stone). Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh, the award-winning filmstars Golden Globe® nominee Patrick Stewart (X-Men: Days of Future Past)in a role ”that’s as cool as it is evil” (Bloody Disgusting) and will haunt audiences well past the closing credits. The “delightfully nasty horror chiller” (Chicago Sun-Times) also stars Anton Yelchin (Star Trek Beyond), Imogen Poots (Fright Night), Alia Shawkat (The Final Girls), Joe Cole (Secret in Their Eyes), and Callum Turner (Queen & Country).

After witnessing a shocking crime, a young rock band is unexpectedly thrust into a life-or-death battle to escape the clutches of a diabolical club owner (Stewart) and his ruthless henchmen in this white-knuckle thriller.

Enter for a chance to win the GREEN ROOM Blu-ray

1. You must have a U.S. mailing address.
2. No purchase necessary.

We Are Movie Geeks has one to give away. All you have to do is to leave a comment below and state your favorite movie with the word “Green” in the title (mine is SOYLENT GREEN !)

The home entertainment release of Green Room contains audio commentary with Director Jeremy Saulnier and a behind-the-scenes featurette.

BLU-RAY/DVD SPECIAL FEATURES*

Audio Commentary with Director Jeremy Saulnier
“Into the Pit: Making Green Room” Featurette

GREEN ROOM – Review

There’s an exchange in the classic Howard Hawks western RIO BRAVO: “I told him you were one of the best,” and the other man responds with, “Well, I’ll tell you what I’m a lot better at, Mr. Wheeler, and that’s minding my own business.” If only the band in GREEN ROOM followed the lesson imparted by Colorado Ryan. I mention both of these films, along with the John Carpenter film ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (which was inspired by RIO BRAVO), because they all exist as siege films – a small group is barricaded in a single location and fights for their life against overwhelming obstacles. It’s an exciting subgenre that director Jeremy Saulnier centers the main conflict around, but diverts from by not having someone trained to deal with hostility like John Wayne or even Bruce Willis like in DIE HARD. Who he places on both sides of the battle is why GREEN ROOM is as hard hitting and terrifying as it is.

A punk band who struggles to get by while on tour stops at a hole in the wall dive in the middle of Oregon looking to play a gig. After they play their set, the group sees something that they shouldn’t have, which leads the owner of the club Darcy (Patrick Stewart) and his Neo-Nazi followers to take matters into their own hands. Maybe the band shouldn’t have opened their set with a cover of Dead Kennedys’ “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.”

When the violence penetrates GREEN ROOM, it cuts with the sharpest knife you can imagine. Violence isn’t glorified as much as it’s presented in a matter-of-fact manner. It’s quick and abrasive, causing you to barely catch your breath as you struggle to process what you just witnessed. GREEN ROOM isn’t just about the violence, but it might be the first thing you think about as your stomach turns leaving the theater. There’s more to chew on though than the impressive practical effects on screen.

The band of young actors led by Anton Yelchin and later joined by Imogen Poots are naturals at being kids. Sure, they aren’t the smartest guys in the room, but they aren’t making obnoxiously stupid decisions either like some might in a slasher film. The same passion and energy that drives their music are what fuels them to survive. Who is just as natural in his role is Patrick Stewart. I guess being the soft-spoken, smart, nice old man in most films got a little stale for him. So, he plays the soft-spoken, smart, evil old man. There’s a level of self-restraint that Stewart employs that might be frustrating for some. However, I found his calm but assertive delivery to be uncomfortably chilling – especially since audiences are used to seeing him on and off screen in quite a different light.

A colleague of mine informed me that some other critics he spoke to saw the lack of backstory for the main antagonist and his followers as a hindrance to the story. Saulnier has a way of immersing the audience in an experience by developing a fully realized world, coated with an authentic layer of graffiti and grime. He did this previously with BLUE RUIN. Yet, both films are about situations. He throws you into a film with characters and just enough information for you to have an emotional connection to get your blood pumping when the blood on the screen starts spurting. GREEN ROOM is a lean and mean machine that hits hard without unnecessary exposition. It’s a thriller that thrives on placing you in this nerve-racking situation. Any more superfluous information might make these helpless victims and horrific monsters feel less human and more like characters on the screen.

For me, two of the most terrifying things are the unexplainable and human beings. What horrific things people are capable of is more terrifying than any ferocious creature with fur and fangs. At its core, GREEN ROOM is a horror film. It’s a story about the evil that lives in plain sight in America that feeds off whomever they choose. They’re cannibals in a sense. Jeremy Saulnier posits that this is the type of evil that many of us turn a blind eye too because, like the “boogeyman” under the bed, if we don’t look, maybe he isn’t actually there. In this case, the boogeyman is there, and the fact that it’s a bunch of punk kids that fight back against him – the type of kids that many “good” people would snub their noses at based on appearance alone – is an ironic twist on the type of film where we see heroes defending American soil from the monsters who really want to hurt us.

Overall rating: 4.5 out of 5

GREEN ROOM is now playing in select theaters

A Chilling Patrick Stewart Stars In Second Trailer For GREEN ROOM

Patrick Stewart plays an evil villain, “an absolute evil bastard,” says director Jeremy Saulnier of the actor in the upcoming film GREEN ROOM.

The movie, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2015 and the Toronto International Film Festival 2015, now has a brand new trailer before it bows in select cinemas on April 15.

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, rundown 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 played memorable bad guy, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, in four episodes of the superb 1976 BBC miniseries “I, CLAUDIUS.” Airing in the US on PBS’ Masterpiece Theatre, Stewart was unforgettable as the ambitious soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius who eliminated anyone who stood between him and ultimate power.

The director says the concept for GREEN ROOM had been gestating for decades. “The better part of my high-school years was spent making zombie films and playing in punk bands. I wasn’t actually a musician, so I yelled into a microphone while my more talented friends played the instruments. For a time, I was as deeply connected to the sound, the aesthetic, and the physicality of punk and hardcore as I was the creative pursuit of filmmaking. It felt very natural to merge these two worlds in Green Room.

This is a blunt-force narrative, meant to be experienced viscerally, in your guts, and the clash between the out-of-town punks and the local neo-Nazis was merely a jumping off point. As the plot develops and the situation spirals out of control, the ideology and affiliations that set the stage for conflict are completely stripped away. I didn’t want it to be about politics, I wanted it to be about momentum.”

The film also stars Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots.

greenroom-movie.com

Watch The Trailer For GREEN ROOM Starring Patrick Stewart

Check out the new trailer for A24’s GREEN ROOM from writer/director Jeremy Saulnier.

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 cast also includes Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, Mark Webber, Eric Edelstein, Macon Blair and Kai Lennox.

GREEN ROOM opens in NY/LA on April 15 and nationwide on April 29.

Visit the the film’s official site: greenroom-movie.com

Patrick Stewart Joins Cast Of Jeremy Saulnier’s GREEN ROOM

Broad Green Pictures (BGP) together with filmscience have announced that Patrick Stewart has been added to the cast of GREEN ROOM. The film is written by Jeremy Saulnier (BLUE RUIN), who will also direct.

Patrick Stewart plays Darcy Banker, the unflinching and industrial leader of a ferocious white supremacist fiefdom based in the Pacific Northwest. Rounding out the cast is Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, Mark Webber, Kai Lennox, Eric Edelstein and Saulnier’s BLUE RUIN star Macon Blair.

In the crime thriller GREEN ROOM, a young punk rock band find themselves trapped in a secluded venue after stumbling upon a horrific act of violence, fighting for their lives against a gang of white power skinheads intent on eliminating all witnesses.

Last seen reprising his iconic role in the summer blockbuster, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, Stewart next stars opposite Matthew Lillard and Carla Gugino in IFC’s MATCH, written and directed by Stephen Belber, which opensJanuary 14. Also in January, Stewart begins shooting the title role in the MRC / Starz comedy series, BLUNT TALK, executive produced by Jonathan Ames and Seth MacFarlane, with Stewart also serving as a producer.

Anish Savjani and Neil Kopp of filmscience will produce GREEN ROOM along with BGP’s Victor Moyers. Gabriel and Daniel Hammond of Broad Green Pictures and Vincent Savino of filmscience will be executive producing the project.

Principal photography began this month in and around Portland, OR. BGP is producing and financing the film and plans to release the movie in 2015.

In case you missed it … ‘Murder Party’

‘Murder Party’ looks fun, but does it hold up in the viewing? Hell, yeah! Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier, and made in cooperation by the Lab of Madness, which is comprised of a handful of people who came up in the movie life together (indie, that is), this surprising little horror/comedy flaunts its legitimate horror-genre creds in your face, while maintaining an effective but low-key comedy underpinning.

Its Halloween and a lonely loser named Chris happens upon a mysterious invitation blowing along the street. The invite is to a “murder party” and, without any knowledge of the details, Chris decides to step out of character and into a home-made suit of armor costume made of cardboard boxes and duct tape. Chris sets out to attend this party instead of sitting at home, but he’ll end up wishing he’d been sitting at home all along. Once he arrives, he finds a group of eccentric artists sitting around bored in a warehouse, coincidentally surprised that Chris showed up at the party. They don’t waste time in tackling Chris and tying him up, explaining to Chris that he’s the entertainment. Actually, he’s an “art project” of the group’s leader Alexander, who wants to murder someone in the name of art. When Chris asks why they’re doing this, they simply refer to the letter and suggest that anyone dumb enough to show up to a “murder party” deserves to die. As the group of sorry artists goof off and bicker amongst themselves, Chris attempts to escape from his captors. Through a series of mishaps and sudden shifts unexpected changes in the plans, the tables quickly turn on exactly who the victims and killers really are.

‘Murder Party’ reminds me of ‘The Last Supper’ except instead of radical liberals inviting people with opposing viewpoints over for dinner and a murder, its pretentious artists inviting the socially inferior to a Halloween bash to end them all. The film also takes on a sort of ‘Breakfast Club’ click amidst its players confined to their location as they interact, except this is a more adult-themed, hardcore plot than being sentenced to Saturday detention in high school. Made on a decisively low budget, the film could have easily fallen into the trap of poor production quality and bad special effects. Instead, the film thrives from a young but talented crew working for free on a project they believed in and outstanding, carefully chosen special effects that only enhance the remainder of the movie. The humor, as I mentioned, is low-key and subtle, but dark and sinister as well. Some of the best humor can easily be missed if the proper attention is not being paid to the film. In one scene (one of the best SFX shots), Chris is dispatching one of his captors with a chainsaw and, as the bloody mess splatters all over Chris, he softly utters “ooh, gross.”

The characters are all a load of fun and each one of them has their own quirks. Another of my favorite bits is the wolfman special FX, which I will refrain from spoiling, but you’ll understand why this scene is so cool when you see the movie. Chris captors are all dressed in costume, my favorite being Lexi dressed as Pris from ‘Blade Runner’. As if the film itself wasn’t enough demented fun on its own, its highly recommended that you watch the featurette afterwards. Its lengthy, but worth every minute… especially if you’re a movie geek who loves the “how” of movies. It gives the audience a really thorough and interesting look at what it takes to make a small, indie horror movie with little money and a short-handed crew.

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