GREEN ROOM [2015]

Director Jeremy Saulnier, once again, forces nerve-shredding audiences to the edge of their seat with the intensely violent thriller Green Room.
Desperate for money, a touring punk band take their chances playing a deepwoods Oregon show to a club of white supremacists leading them into a night of extreme bloodshed.
Like he did with Blue Ruin, Saulnier crafts a style of violence that is so swift, brutal and realistic it never needs to linger on it to leave an unsettling lasting effect.  Each performance is beautifully understated but it's Patrick Stewart's big bad that shines, as he never sacrifices his civility for clichéd boorishness.  Instead he uses his courteous mannerisms to evoke more fear into the already uneasy viewer.  It's just as delightfully nasty and blackly humorous as his previous works but Saulnier doesn't quite keep the tension quite as tightly wound throughout as he did before.  Still, this is a great thriller that leaves a lasting impression with nervous disturbed laughter.

3½ red laces out of 5

MURDER PARTY [2007]

Director Jeremy Saulnier's debut Murder Party is an over-the-top comedy that is just a taste of the disturbingly violent films he would thrust upon us.
An awkward loner finds a Halloween party invitation on the sidewalk and decides to attend the mysterious soiree, foolishly unaware of the horrors that lie before him.
The movie has a difficult time smoothly bouncing back & forth between comedy and violence but still manages to make both effective.  It offers enough surprises and shocks to please the twisted movie-goer searching for something well off the beaten path.  It might take it's time picking up steam but once it does it turns into a wildly funny bloodbath that has a surprising amount of tension.

3 "art" projects out of 5

BLUE RUIN [2013]

Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier leads us down the darkness of his Southern Gothic revenge flick Blue Ruin with great film-making precision.
 Skinny little nobody Dwight Evans sets out to avenge his murdered parents only to find improvising isn't the best way to go as he gets in way over his head.  Saulnier channels the Coen Brothers and Cormac McCarthy, with an uneasy slow-burning tension that occasionally erupts in spurts of violence that feels uncomfortably closer to reality than most films in it's genre.  Dwight is a cold and distant figure that we wouldn't know if not for the people that nervously surround him and that's where we find what little comfort the film offers.  It could be a pure bloodbath but the film knows precisely when to let the violence in and when to let the pressure cook, proving  itself to be a lot more clever than one might suspect.  A finely shot, hauntingly effective thriller that hypnotizes with it's well-paced reveals and off-beat humor.  

4 Pontiacs out of 5