In the market for a taut lock-roomed thriller with a punk-rock soundtrack? Fresh from a festival run, Green Room is now out in select theaters. Anton Yelchin, Patrick Stewart, and Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat star in director Jeremy Saulnier's follow-up to his feature break-out movie, Blue Ruin. Green Room takes its title from the grimy backstage sanctuary the struggling band the Ain't Rights barricade themselves in after stumbling across a dead body in hardcore punk club they just played. The neo-Nazi skinheads running the place decide that they can't let their witnesses leave, and a heart-pounding stand-off ensues. The film has earned positive reviews for building and maintaining a tangible sense of dread. Could an appreciative response lead to another punk-rock horror film from the same filmmaker? Will Green Room have a sequel?
So far, no plans for a follow-up have been announced, and the chances for one aren't looking good. The horror genre practically invented sequels, but Green Room is not a crazed-slasher or immortal-demon kind of horror film. The bad guys are pure human, and driven by pure human hatred. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Green Room star Alia Shawkat alleged that the film's recognizable villains are more frightening than anything that could come out of a Hollywood creature shop. "That's the thing that's scariest to me in reality. It's not zombies, it's not aliens," Shawkat said. "It's people who exist who hate each other so much. And sadly, they are going to rallies now, and being filmed on television."
So, Green Room isn't occupied by vampires or werewolves or any other supernatural threat that would have a better chance than flesh-and-blood humans of surviving for a sequel. That's one strike against. Consider too the narrowness of this story and how a continuation might dilute its impact. The Ain't Rights end up in the very wrong place at the very wrong time. And though they do bait the club's patrons with an anti-white supremacy opener, it's the accidental discovery of the corpse that seals their fate and changes them forever. In an interview with Paste Magazine, Saulnier characterized the transformation the band members have to undergo during the film. Saulnier said:
They didn’t ask for this, and as they start dying, those who survive have to step up. And the only way to do that is to transition into killers and realize that they’re no real match for the semi-professional soldiers outside the green room. They kind of have to go gonzo to fight.
If Green Room does get a sequel, I would guess that it would be more of a sister-film than a direct extension. Saulnier confirms that some of the Ain't Rights will lose their lives during Green Room, and that the rest will be changed. No longer will they be the social media eschewing idealistic punk rockers they were before this gig. And hopefully they'll know better than to book a show at a venue run by a gang of sadistic racists ever again.
Image: A24
