Yes, Jeremy Saulnier's GREEN ROOM is just as white-knuckle, scarily great as you've heard

Really now: can any film live up to those mostly rapturous reviews together with the enormous consumer approval that the new thriller, GREEN ROOM, has generated?  As a certain disappointing President might say, Yes, it can. This new and riveting thriller from Jeremy Saulnier takes its place as the best white-knuckle-inducing movie since the woefully underseen Not Safe For Work. In fact, Green Room is even more edge-of-your-seat friendly, and it's a lot creepier, too -- due to its backwoods, white-supremacist venue.

The film's very title is oh-so-nicely ironic. When TrustMovies first heard it bandied about, he immediately thought of the "green rooms" he'd known when he worked at Manhattan's Lincoln Center, Further, the movie's star, Patrick Stewart, (below) conjured images of the actor's recent film, Match, which takes place in Manhattan's Upper West Side, in which Stewart plays a famous choreographer and teacher. Hardly.

Instead, Mr. Saulnier (shown two photos above: such a kindly-looking fellow to create all this mayhem) uses that green room -- as scuzzy an example of the venue as we've seen -- initially for its little quartet of punk rockers to relax pre-performance, and then as a place for sudden shock, imprisonment, escape and much, much worse.

Saulnier starts very slowly -- we meet the band mid-trip and note their very hand-to-mouth existence. When their next gig goes south, the fellow who set it up provides a quickly planned new one in those aforementioned backwoods, and our group is off to the races.

Once the moment of reckoning arrives, there's no turning back, and the film simply goes from overdrive to warp speed, so fast and furiously that if there are a couple of questionable moments (and I think there may be), so completely breathless are we in the audience that there's no time to quibble while we're viewing.

Along the way there are plenty of moments of black humor and little ironies abound, never more so than a scene between a dog and his master at the conclusion. But none of these seem like the usual generic fodder that mainstream Hollywood is so fond of churning out. Everything in this movie is geared to character, location and ambience. Green Room, in fact, is the genre film raised to the level of art.

The cast is beautifully chosen and each member delivers -- from star Stewart on down. Band members are essayed by Anton Yelchin (above, right: this is his second excellent "music" movie in the last year or so, after Rudderless), Alia Shawkat (above, center), Callum Turner (star of the wonderful and still not available on home video Queen and Country) and Joe Cole (below)

On the other side, though some positions do change, are actors like Mr. Stewart (giving one of his most chilling performances), Imogen Poots (below), Mark Webber (at bottom) and Macon Blair (of Blue Ruin, Saulnier's excellent earlier movie). Each character comes through tellingly, thanks to the performer and the on-point screenplay, also by Saulnier -- who has made his villian exceedingly bright and vicious and his protagonists so frightened and crazed that they will try just about anything.

By film's end, I suspect you'll feel hugely satisfied, and not simply because you're been taken on a breathless, horrifying adventure, but also because the filmmaker appears to play so very fairly with both his tale and his audience. He rarely relies on coincidence or happenstance, and he lets the chips fall where they may. This is not what we're used to, and if it's sometimes difficult to watch, the result is a movie you'll stayed glued to and will not easily forget.

Green Room -- from A24 and running a sleek 95 minutes -- after opening in New York and Los Angeles two weeks back, opens nationwide today. Here in South Florida, it plays Boca Raton at the Cinemark Palace 20, in Sunrise at the Regal Sawgrass Stadium 23, in Aventura at the AMC Aventura 24, in Miami Beach at the Regal South Beach Stadium 18, in Hollywood at the Regal Oakwood Stadium 18, in Fort Lauderdale at the Regal Cypress Creek Stadium 16, in Davie at the Cinemark Paradise 24 and in South Miami at the AMC Sunset Place 24. If you're elsewhere, to learn the theater nearest you, simply click here and enter your zip code or city/state.

Blu-ray/DVDebut: Jeremy Saulnier's smart, thought-provoking vengeance tale, BLUE RUIN

One of the most oddball, funny and smart/sleazily enjoyable slasher comedies TrustMovies has seen -- the 2007 Murder Party -- suddenly popped up when I clicked to see the IMDB profile for Jeremy Saulnier (shown below), director, writer and cinematog-rapher of the generally well-received BLUE RUIN. Murder Party was an original -- a comic tale of "art," life and the mayhem that ensues when a fellow is invited to said party as the "guest of honor." It's been seven years since that film made its debut, and we've still seen nothing quite like it. Now we have Mr. Saulnier's latest endeavor to consider and content us. Again, it's an original.

This time, however, Saulnier is every bit as serious about his characters and events as he was lighthearted about those in his earlier piece. And though his movie is indeed original, its genre -- the vengeance thriller -- is anything but. Yet how this talented filmmaker approaches his story, how he parcels out information so that both we and the characters we're watching learn more about what is really going on and why makes for a much more thoughtful and problematic tale than we initially expect.

Who actually initiated the killings that began the tale and will continue, as well as who in the two families involved decides to keep the revenge going: These are things we learn along the way that stop us short and make us re-consider.

Saulnier tosses us into the middle of things immediately, in the person of Dwight (Macon Blair, in an unforgettable performance), initially hirsute, wide-eyed and looking like a crazy man (two photos above) then later, clearn shaven and more more "together" (just above) That he is not as crazy as might have imagined is quickly brought home by the kindly woman cop who alerts Dwight to some unsettling news.

I don't want to give much more away regarding plot twists and turns. I'll just say that every last one of these is believable and adds to the complexities on view. Along the way, we meet Dwight's sister (Amy Hargreaves, above), his old high school friend (Devin Ratray, below), and finally members of the, well, "opposing" family.

How it all is resolved should leave you satisfied, but not in the usual, vengeance-is-mine manner. When Blue Ruin made its theatrical debut a few months back, some critics remarked that, really, it was just another revenge tale. But it is not. It's a lot deeper and problematic that that. On the basis of Saulnier's two full-length films, I'd call him a very accomplished young filmmaker, one whom I will follow wherever he chooses to go.

Meanwhile, Blue Ruin -- from Anchor Bay Entertainment and Radius-TWC and running just 90 minutes -- appeared on DVD and Blu-ray yesterday, July 22 (the Blu-ray transfer, by the way, is smashing), for purchase or rental.