Really Awful Movies

Jeremy Saulnier wanted to make an exploitation movie with ready-made villains. And who better to fill this role (other than Russians, usually, or Arab terrorists) than Nazis?

Green Room (2015) is his third full-length feature, his first being the charmingly gory cloistered art scene send-up, Murder Party. Say this about the man: Brooklyn art studios and Oregon punk bars are as far removed as you can get from your standard horror set-up.

Hardcore band The Ain’t Rights is spinning its wheels on the road, a common enough fact of life for many touring acts. And they cut corners any way they can, sleeping in their van and siphoning gas.

When their tour sputters to Spinal Tap proportions, which include a truly terrible gig inside a half-capacity burrito joint, a fan-zine journalist/booker tries to remedy the misstep with a face-saving kick at the can: a very lucrative gig, albeit at a skinhead bar in the remote Pacific Northwest.

It’s deep in the dark woods, a feature of many horrors as these represent the border between order and chaos. But the bar’s pretty chaotic as well.

The Ain’t Rights’ singer baits the rough-neck crowd with a tear-through of Dead Kennedy’s Nazi Punks F*ck Off. Certainly not a number to help their case, and sure enough, there are enough members of the crowd on hand with unsympathetic sensibilities when it comes to that song.

Post-gig, bassist Pat (the late Anton Yelchin) forgets his cell in the backstage green room, where, in true genre film fashion, he spots….a body! It’s a young girl, who’s been stabbed in the side of the head.

What to do with a body is the plot that’s launched 1,000 films, but the way the material is handled here — to Saulnier’s credit — Green Room doesn’t even NEED a body!

The background/place setting is so authentic, the characters so compelling, that a spin-off film could’ve easily been made about the exploits of earlier Ain’t Rights’ tours, maybe an updated version of Bruce MacDonald’s Hard Core Logo.

Regardless, as witnesses to the crime, the band members find themselves in a terrible predicament, made worse upon the arrival of bar owner Darcy (a terrific, sonorous turn by none other than Patrick Stewart, squaring the Star Trek circle with Yelchin, who was Chekov in the movie reboot).

Terrific tense action and cramped atmosphere that doubles as a loving tribute to punk rock. Ironically, it’s also quiet, especially when it needs to be, a rarity in horror.

Punk’s not dead! But things aren’t looking right for Ain’t Right.

***3/4 (out of 5)

[CHECK OUT THE REALLY AWFUL MOVIES PODCAST DISCUSSION OF GREEN ROOM]

Hammer Productions ultimately could not withstand the heightened gore that audiences came to favor in the early 70s, as the gritty realism of The Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre made Gothic horror appear almost quaint.

Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter is latter day Hammer, yet featuring all the things that made these films so great: the mien, postures, staircases, stagecoaches, candelabras, brandy decanters and purple dialogue.

A premature aging epidemic ravages an 18th century village, as victims’ faces are drained of youth and Botox as cosmetic therapy hadn’t been developed for another 200 years. One Dr Marcus is concerned, and calls in the dashing Captain Kronos to investigate (German actor Horst Janson). Kronos, along with hunchbacked loyal manservant Hieronymus Grost are on the case — after all, they’re vampire hunters.

Along the way, they pick up a local, Carla, who’s been bound, ankles in neck, in a pillory. She is played by the stunning Caroline Munro (Maniac/Starcrash) and soon becomes Kronos’ lover.

We find out that there’s as much diversity in the vampire kingdom as there is among mammalian predators, and that the creatures of the undead cannot be killed by conventional means in all cases, and that their external morphology and behavior differs by region. This was Hammer’s obvious attempt to add iron to what at that point had become an anemic genre.

captain_kronos_vampire — O Captain! My Captain!

The duo’s swashbuckling quest leads to the Durward household, whose matriarch is bedridden and ravaged by the passage of time — a lot of time — she looks dreadful.

Our heroes fight off a bunch of goons sent by the creatures of the night to intercept them, in a spectacular tavern saber brawl. The publican and the missus look on from beneath the bar as we get our first taste of some of Captain Kronos’ swordplay prowess.

Poor Dr Marcus turns though, and Kronos and Grost must find a way to put him out of his misery and find out who the culprit is/are.

Rip-roaring fun from start to finish, a lush no-budget and underrated entry in the Hammer canon.

***1/2 (out of 5)

[CHECK OUT OUR CAPTAIN KRONOS PODCAST]