Movie trailers are like free samples at Costco: The good ones excite you and leave you wanting more, while the bad ones make you cringe. Each week, A&E columnist Matthew Fernandez will dissect movie trailers and analyze the Hollywood fare to come.
The woods have always been a terrifying place for man. It is where man becomes prey for things that lurk in the shadows.
Director Jeremy Saulnier wants to tap into that primal terror with his new survival horror film “Green Room.”
The film’s red band trailer follows the members of a struggling punk rock band who are forced to fight for survival after they witness a murder at a concert in a backwoods venue. Saulnier’s story takes the phrase “wrong place, wrong time” to its gritty, gory extreme. Considering its multiple film festival wins, including at the Austin Fantastic Fest and the Festival du nouveau cinéma, I’m excited to see how it plays out.
The premise leaves me wanting to know more. The murder happens in a remote area, so why don’t the killers just eliminate the witnesses? It would be a lot easier than convincing them to keep quiet and removes the problem of having them violently attempt to escape. I hope the film has a good explanation for the killers’ motivation in keeping the band members alive and for leaving weapons where the witnesses can access them. The villains need more depth than simply being neo-Nazis who proudly tack the Confederate battle flag to their wall.
Patrick Stewart once again plays the role of a leader in this film, except this time, he’s the head of the murderous skinheads. I’m used to seeing Stewart play the wise and benevolent Professor X in “X-Men” and the gallant, intrepid Captain Picard of “Star Trek.” I’m not comfortable with an evil Stewart; he looks very compelling as a villain.
There’s something eerily chilling about his calm demeanor despite the violence throughout the trailer. Based on his reactions, he seems like the kind of villain who’s perfectly fine ordering someone to be hacked to bits and fed to the dogs but can’t stomach wielding the machete himself. The look of aversion on his face when one of his crew pulls a machete, his cold command to “let him bleed” and his assurance that “this will all be over soon” create an interesting level of conflict within Stewart’s character.
The trailer skillfully conveys the kind of brutality to expect from the movie without giving away its most gruesome money shots. It shows a few dead bodies, snarling dogs attacking, plus a few gunshots and machete slashes, but not much else.
In contrast to the “Jane Got a Gun” trailer I discussed, “Green Room” shows enough action to excite audiences while practicing an appropriate level of restraint. The most violent scene depicts a restrained man’s elbow being bent backwards as his face is crushed by a boot, demonstrating the film’s macabre creativity and willingness to deviate from the conventional shooting and slashing. My hope is that “Green Room” will contain more of this kind of violence rather than the over-the-top gore of the “Saw” films.
The trailer as a whole is rather mild considering the film’s subject matter. It left me wondering whether it really needed to be a red band trailer. Red band trailers can be rather effective, for example in the case of “Deadpool,” in which the levels of violence and profanity are significantly higher than in tamer green band trailers, but I don’t think this was the case for “Green Room.” I expected more mature content out of the “Green Room” trailer. Besides three instances of the s-word, two f-bombs and the elbow pop scene, there isn’t really much in the trailer that warrants a red band. I don’t really see the point of not saving the more explicit content for the film itself. Regardless, the trailer has me expecting some wonderfully macabre movie magic.
“Green Room” reminds us that, much like our ancestors, modern man still has much to fear in the forest. The film looks like a terrifying and darkly-shot exploration of facing a murderer and having to kill to stay alive. Much more than a typical slasher film, it looks like the kind of movie that digs deeper into the horror of the human condition and keeps your eyes violently glued to the screen.
– Matthew Fernandez
Are you intrigued by the new trailer for “Green Room?” Email Fernandez at mfernandez@media.ucla.edu.