238 - Green Room

Slashin' cast.

Welcome back, fiends, to Handle Wiscons, presented by the Slash and Cast Podcast Network for the show that dissects hore through the primal fears that fuel our nightmares explore and what terrifies us both on and off the screen. I'm your host, Millie Drunk, and throughout the month we've been taking a closer look at Claytrophobia and the fear of being trapped. As always, I'd like to extend an invitation to join our community of fiends.

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Uh now with me here tonight for uh this double feature recording is my co-host Grindhouse Zombie and Zombie uh I mean you already prefaced that uh the movie that we're talking about tonight is one that uh you didn't really like. That's fine. Uh I I always go into these episodes. With ne never having the intent of trying to convince you

that this was a good movie. Um I think it will still lead to an interesting discussion. But you know, there are there are just a number of times when you and I just don't see eye to eye on some movies. It's already happened a few times this year, uh in regards to a couple of theatrical releases. But what fun would it be if we just agree on literally everything? Not that much. So I'm looking forward to this one nonetheless.

Oh, all things being equal, you and I do seem to live in a zone where we generally think the same thing of the same movies and uh score wise, plot wise, whatever else, we might be, you know, A little bit off the bullseye, but generally speaking, we're both like, Yeah, this was either really good or it was really not good. Yeah, this is one of those rare occasions where And I this actually ended up being a first time watch for me and I'm watching this movie and like five minutes in I hated it.

And I wasn't entirely sure why. And I think the reality is and this is gonna make me sound old as fuck, but whatever.

I come from a different generation and I think that when you use something like Nazis in a movie, I think you've gotta tread very carefully. Um, and'cause I think about movies like Dead Snow, for example, there's Nazis all over the fucking place, right? But it's it's done in a way that I think it's done with a certain level of care where we're not We're not ever trying to show I guess for lack of a better term, we're not ever trying to show hate. We're not even like e even in dead snow the

The Nazi zombies, they're not driven by hate, right? They're driven by their want for their treasure. So it it kinda takes it takes a little bit of the sting out of it. So a anyway, so when you're using things like Nazis, I think you've gotta be you've gotta be really careful how you approach it. And I think the approach in this movie is nothing short of ham fisted. And the other thing that makes me really bad about it.

Is it it pooks it basically puts like a punk band in the middle of this and I think it kinda casts a negative light on punk music in general. Um, because I know growing up so and again, this is a generation thing, for me, when I was in high school, there were actually a lot of this sort of white supremacy Nazi-ish punk bands.

And a lot of times you didn't really know that they were until you started listening to the lyrics, right? Because you didn't have the internet. Nobody on the internet told you that this was something that you probably shouldn't listen to. And This movie brought me back to being sixteen years old and a friend of mine introducing to me to a band called Death Squad. And it was like, oh that sounds punk as hell, right?

And you start listening to the music and by about the second song you're like, Oh holy shit And you you know exactly what they're saying and you're like, Why did you bring this to me? And My friend honestly was not the brightest guy in the world. He just didn't see it. He didn't he didn't get it, you know, and I'm like These are people that are singing about murdering Jews. And he's like Well no they're not and I'm like, listen to the words and he was like

Oh, yeah. And so i given that there was a lot of that that you had to filter through in my age to get to the actual good punk music. Um, it kind of pisses me off that they tossed this punk band into this place where that's what they had to deal with. And then like I said, on top of else they they they just

In a moder this was twenty fifteen, right? So this is not This isn't w this isn't a movie that was made like in the late eighties in the you know, in the in the or even in the early eighties when we had things like, you know, Gleaming the Cube or Red or anything like that where they threw punk bands in and But it was for a reason because it was kind of like an alternative lifestyle and it was like an alternative way of viewing things.

It was just fucking Nazis. And I mean and i in this day and age, anyone that thinks that a that someone who is a Nazi is not a fucking asshole. Well, guess what? You're just not paying attention. Okay? And Especially now with this like what our society has seen, this huge rise in amp anti Semitism. It's like I this movie just struck me in every single wrong way and I I wish it didn't exist.

So tonight we're talking about Green Room, a synopsis where this one reads, A punk rock band is forced to fight for survival after witnessing a murder at a neo-Nazi skinhead bar. Uh so this is directed by Jeremy Solnier. And he's always been a director who has a sort of like playful sense of humor to him. And this was following his. uh breakout like second feature which is blue ruin.

Uh, but this is far from like ton in cheek. You know, here in Green Room a ton is more likely to be uh violently removed and consumed by pit bulls than to remain in place. You know, the plot for this one

Was pretty deceptively simple, right? We have this Virginia based punk band who is Tourian uh rural Oregon, who become ensnared in this life or death struggle against a neo-Nazi drug dealer and warlord, Who's portrayed by Patrick Stewart, uh who owns this skinhead bar in the Pacific Northwest Wilderness.

And this narrative includes a few fleeting moments of dark humor sprinkled in, uh, which when you compare it to the violence in the movie, like those moments in between that allow you to breathe a little bit. do become more like eagerly anticipated as the movie progresses. Uh but for me like one of the most subtly impactful observations is just like

the geography of this movie, you know, with it being set in Oregon, which is a state often associated with progressive urban culture, you know, having these artisan coffee shops, you know, liberal politics. Uh, you know, the set in this is intentional No, Oregon was explicitly founded as Kinda like this racist utopia for lack of a better term, with constitutional provisions that, you know, once barred black Americans from living, you know, working or just owning property within the borders.

And this history is neither ancient nor like safely distant even at this point. You know, it's ingrained in the legal and social framework of the state that, you know, many Americans would not typically associate with white supremacy. Uh Solnier does not like overtly highlight that context, but he situates a skinhead compound within you know Oregon's forest, which allows the geography to basically speak for itself.

Interesting. Interesting. So I guess when I think about Oregon now and so I think you know my wife is from the West Coast and she's and so we we have visited uh many, many cities in Oregon and It's interesting to think that It had a time where it was supposed to be like, you know, the uh the race baiter utopia, right? Um, because now it's anything but And it's now, you know

transition to the whole thing is just like a giant fucking hippie commune, you know, and people just do whatever they want. I mean and and and they have some advantages, right? They have the the climate where it's like, you know, h here in Minneapolis when it gets cold You know, the I don't want to be an asshole here. Mm-hmm. The people that don't want to be productive members of society on purpose

Uh uh a a lot of them don't make it through the winter. That's just kinda how it goes. Now is that uh in a strictly moral position? Is that a sad thing? I I mean, yeah, but The way things are going in my state, it's like people just need to wake up and start seeing things for what they are. Now with this group of people, I I still think this movie just makes me so fucking mad. Um

I don't like any of the characters in this movie. I don't I don't like our band. Um because they feel like the typical sort of like hippie deadbeats that are just trying to like make their way in the world. And while there's a piece of me that sort of appreciates that, everyone in this band comes off like a fucking self entitled asshole. Every single one of them. And then we meet our

All these fucking Nazi guys and they're all self entitled assholes who just hate people for the sake of hating people. And for me It kind of really blurred the lines of like what's the difference? You know? And when the difference becomes the only thing is this this unbridled hatred for a certain group of people because well let's face it, because you're a fucking idiot. Um, it's like, well, if that's the only difference For me in this movie, I I I found myself

Ultimately bored because I didn't give a shit who won. I really didn't care. Um, how about just everybody kill everybody? Or, you know, a Somebody from a long ways away, uh pull the end of Return of the Living Dead and you have a guy in a train car that just goes, Oh yes, sir. Good morning to you too, sir, and then you hear

And then the whole thing is a smoking hole in the ground and everybody would have been better off. It's it's hard to watch movies like that where you can't find somebody to root for. And then on top of everything else, and this is gonna be Terribly unpopular.

I don't think I don't really think Anton Yelchin was that good of an actor. I I I really don't think he was. Um And to make it even more unpopular, if you live your life and you do you go through things and then you're stupid enough to be killed by your car in a mailbox, The world's probably better off with him. Yeah. That's just how it is. Thinking seeing him all the way back into like one of the Terminator movies, and then you know, as he came up.

He was gonna be a mediocre character actor no matter what he did. Um And so while it's never fun to see somebody die, it's never a good thing. I'm not applauding it. I I i the acting world didn't lose a gem because everybody thought he was a gem and he really wasn't. But there wasn't

There just wasn't anybody to root for and there wasn't anybody to carry this movie. And then seeing it now is a first time watch, knowing that we have both Patrick Stewart and him and it's like, Okay, there's two fucking Star Trek guys in it and it's like now I care even less. So it's like Uh okay, just the let's just let's just get through it and get it over. I mean the the highlight of this movie is is Imogen Poots because she's just she's a gem in everything she does.

Uh beyond that, yeah, I just The movie never gave me a reason to care. And when I don't care, I get detached pretty quick. Yeah, and you get checked out. Yeah, I understand that. I mean I after you would watched it at night, I I figured The the lack of caring about any individual character was gonna be like a major driving point for you.

And uh I I I understand that. It it it it does come across as just like a losing battle because you just you don't have any individual person to like latch onto throughout the entirety of this movie. Um

But for me one of the things that I found intriguing just about this premise is it kind of challenges the narrative that violent, you know Extremism originates from distant places. You know, a lot of times we're talking about like the deep south. You know, foreign countries or you know, other seemingly monstrous locations. And Grimroom asserts.

that, you know, this threat is present here and has always been. You know, it's obscured not by physical distance, but by the disparity between public perception and private reality. No, here we have this punk band, you know, the ain't rights who are uh traversing this rural landscape to reach this uh Darcy's bar. But not that a lot of ways really indicate the danger that awaits.

You know, and that's precisely the point. You know, extremist violence doesn't announce itself with warning signs or neonark. You know, it occupies the same geography as everything else. You know, it's indistinguishable from the outside until one is already ensnared within. And when we have This bar basically at the center of this, you know, forest set in, you know, that amplifies it in ways that extend beyond that immediate.

Narrative. You know, trees have, you know, historically symbolized the American wilderness. You know, it represents freedom, the frontier, you know, natural abundance. And you know, that's throughout the nation's cultural mythology. You know, Salnier here uses them differently. You know, they're enclosures. It's concealment. It's a reminder that the natural world is morally indifferent to the events within it.

Well, in the end, I mean you're you're at a place where if you think about nature and you think about like people in general. Ultimately. People want to be remembered for something, right? They wanna they wanna leave a legacy. Whereas the best legacy you can leave for nature is to to leave it in a place where it looks like you were never there to start with. And this place, I mean it a lot of this place when you see it from the outside and you do see the call it the setting of the whole thing.

It looks like a place that would be like a great forest lodge, right? And one of those things where it's like, I could hang out here and I could have a lot of fun and then you you know, you find out who's there and who's not and it's like, Yeah, too bad we can't stay, baby. It's Still.

Through all the things that it's trying to tell you. And I think the one thing probably where it lets me down the most is that yes, we have that we have this punk band who's fighting against these people. But again, maybe a generational thing. Where often for me It was your goal as a person to see these two things. that were often intermixed, right? Punk and a lot of this neo Nazi bullshit.

were often intermixed and it was up to you as a as a thinking, breathing human being, to go, Okay, you know, I like this punk band, but I don't like this punk band and and here is why. And The the whole espousing hate thing is just so I'm just gonna say this now. If you're listening to this and you're a Nazi, guess what? You're a moron. Do everybody a favor and go jump off a fucking bridge. Okay, the world will be better off without you.

Hate is stupid. If you meet somebody and you don't like them for who they are and what their character is, I'm fine with that. If you just look across a room and you hate somebody because you can pick out a physical feature or you can pick out a religion or you can you're an idiot. And I don't think this movie ever goes far enough in trying to make you believe that. It's it just ends up being a fight between two things that when for me I was young we're already fighting with each other.

And it was people that wanted to be in punk bands but did not wanna be neo Nazis and people that were neo Nazis that thought that punk bands were their ultimate representation and that and those bands going, No we're not. We don't let And so there was a lot of that shit that you would see. I mean, like, you know, when I was young going down to first Ave to see like to see punk bands.

And you'd you'd see these shaved head leather jacket guys in line, and it was like you'd walk up with your ticket and go look at these guys and go, nope, and just go back home because it wasn't fucking worth it. And I I I would have liked to have seen. a more pervasive message. not not just survival.

But more of this really overarching theme of you guys are a bunch of assholes and we're gonna kill you Not because you're trying to hurt us, but I would have I would have more preferred we're gonna kill you because you're fucking assholes and the world's gonna be better off without you. And it just Again, nobody to care about, no resonating message, just a survival story. And it's like, again, if you're gonna throw Nazis in there, you gotta get a little deeper than that.

Yeah, I feel like part of this too is definitely hurt by the fact that we uh Very recently I had rewatched Silent Night, Deadly Night, that came out this last year, which has one of the best Sequences to that extent, which I will add. Um, so that it's definitely gets hampered down by that. But um getting back to the wilderness of this, the one thing I will say is like The wilderness here is

Not to protect, you know, this band the gain rights. No, it conceals their assailants. You know, it absorbs the sounds of violence. It offers neither witness nor judgment. So when we get to the final act and you know the escape into the forest, you know it doesn't have this liberated feeling to it because the forest was never this sanctuary.

No is merely this is this larger version of the green room. It was a space where danger was omnipresent and visibility was limited. You know, Pat and Amber emerged from one trap only to enter into a larger one. You know, with the trees uh appearing identical in both settings. Well it's escaping one trap and going into another and that's not

It's not a new theme, right? We've seen it in a lot of movies where people escape things and then all of a sudden you've escaped, but great, you're lost in the woods. Um and in a lot of ways Being lost in the woods honestly is almost a little bit scarier than being chased by Nazis. I if you've ever actually been lost in the woods, and it's happened to me once and it wasn't for very long, but I've been lost in the woods. And there is a moment where you are just like

You're looking around and going, What the fuck do I do next? Like I have no idea. Um, now granted mine ended quickly and everything I I'm sitting here so it clearly everything worked out right. Um for this movie, honestly, The Forest might have been the most compelling character because it was the one that was the quietest.

It it said next to nothing, uh, but it also the overall had the biggest impact on everything. And I think they tried to pull in some of the isolationist thing because I mean these there was a little bit of a Yeah scrape off the neo-Nazi frosting on this cake. There was definitely some of the backwoods survivor a little bit prepper-ish.

But again, the the whole a little bit prepper ish thing and we're gonna talk about that coming up not too long ago, again it pisses me off because then it starts lumping people together. And, you know, Not everybody that preps is a Nazi, and not every Nazi preps.

And but every Nazi's an asshole and not every prepper is an asshole. I mean, a lot of preppers are fucking crazy, I get that. And I'm not a prepper per se, but I'm also not gonna say that I'm not a prepper per se. So When you start pulling these things in and you start associating these things with

with this group of people that are just utterly Unlikable. you don't care, you hope they all die and then you get to the Nazis. It's like, oh fuck. I mean just g give me something to work with here and It's one of those rare movies where it gave me nothing to work with. I I tried and it's like, Well, okay, maybe we're gonna go after the you know, the uh the the the top guy and something good is g and

The whole movie uh with Patrick Stewart's character, I just ca I just kept waiting for him to go engage. And it was like so it just like, okay. So you can't I I mean, just about every person in this movie that had a dominant role was cast wrong. You can't pull Patrick Stewart into a neo Nazi story and have anybody believe it. You just can't. Okay?

It going from a T V show where he was the captain of a spaceship whose whole goal it was is to go out and explore and find other races and then have him play a Nazi, it's not fucking believable. Um And so it just it it it takes what's supposed to be your linchpin of the story in this big tough guy and it's just like Yeah, I don't believe that No. It's just it's it doesn't make any fucking sense.

It it's it's one on a list of a hundred and seventeen things that just pissed me off about this movie. And I I know a lot of people like it. It's it's they think it's brutal and there's whatever else. It's one of those things I think if you if you put it under the right lens and you look at it, you're like For me it just It it literally had zero to offer. And when it took my mind to other places constantly, just it just

It was like, oh, I I there's a there's a little bit of American History X, but it's really bad. There's a little bit of Star Trek. There's a little bit of uh like the skateboarder films I watched when I was a kid. And it's just like

Uh what are you trying to tell me here? It's like and it it becomes a survival story in the end, but like I said, I just didn't give a shit because there was no character that was even worth liking. So it When you take away that one little point of having a character where it's like they do something or they say something profound or they they fight back in a profound way. Nobody here did that. They were just trying to get out alive and it was like, Yeah, I'm just

Sorry, not interested. Next. Yeah, I'm not gonna say like this was a perfect movie for me either, cause um for me, I think the biggest downside is just the fact that, you know, the whole like operation of this Feels just intentionally incomplete. You know, feels like a thematic choice rather than a lack of resolve. You know, here we're shown this bar, you know, the skinheads, you know, this entire drug operation that they have going on in the basement of this place.

uh and you know the ruthless like efficiency of their cleanup protocol. You know, we have references to different ranks and rituals. You know, we have like the red shoelaces, for example. Uh we have this internal hierarchy, you know, the chain of command function with almost like military precision even i in crisis uh are being heard. But

You know, we don't really have like this comprehensive like account of the audiology's reach, you know, the supply chains, the connections to broader movements and networks is just completely absent. Um So I don't know if it's like if it was a lack of ambition. But You know, it's more like aptly interpreted as kind of like a formal embodiment of the film's central argument, which for the most part is just that you know violent extremism remains largely invisible to outsiders.

You know, and the incompleteness of or understanding that is a political condition and not merely a narrative convenience. Well, fair enough, but at the same time when you have a group of people that are that are preaching purity And it you need to do it this way and it always needs to be this way and blah blah blah. And oh by the way, we're fucking drug dealers on the side. Like, fuck you. Like like come on. And

While I understand that when you at with the premise of this movie and you have this group, you've gotta have them have a way to be uh subsisting, right? There has to be something. But what a fucking shocker. They're a bunch of drug guys who do this and then half the guys are hooked on the drugs, so they've got this built in c I mean, it's all uh You know, it's like I watch Sons of Anarchy, guys. I get it. Like I I just w like why? I just I don't know. I

The whole thing in the end was riddled with characters that I didn't care about, and and in a lot of cases just flat out hated. A storyline that was So predictable, but at the same time so full of holes. Like how did this happen? And it's just like, nah, don't worry about that. Just keep moving. Keep moving. Don't think about that. I

It still honestly makes me wonder why so many people like this. And I think if I didn't if I didn't have the if I didn't have two things. If I didn't have that I think that you need to treat things with Nazis with a little bit of deference and be a little careful. and they weren't, at least in my head, kind of shitting on punk bands, I think I probably would have found this at least a little bit entertaining. But those two things that honestly it they come from my youth.

Just yeah, like I said, fifteen minutes in it was like, fuck all these people. I just don't care. Let'em all fucking die. Now the the whole young band scratching and to do all that. That's something I can understand a little bit and I can relate to. We all kind of have that thing. But but at the same time, even the people in this band It isn't like anybody's

honestly scratching all that hard. They're they're basically just whining about why things aren't happening for them. So even with them, it's just like J God, go just go choke a chicken, man. I just just shut up and die already. I yeah, I I'm trying here, but I fucking hate this movie. I just hate it. And like I said, it's rare that you and I disagree this badly, but I just This movie has next to no redeeming qualities for me. Next to none. Um Say it again. Almost every character was cast wrong.

The the overarching theme was not treated with the deference that I should I thought it should be. We have this group that Seems to be trying to charge ahead but is also going nowhere. And that's both the band and the Nazis. Nobody actually has a plan for what the next step is gonna be and how we're gonna get there. This is just one group that fucked up, the other group saw it, and everyone's trying to make sure that nobody rats on anybody else. And it's like

It if you think about it in the strictest of terms, it could be a really bad mob movie. Um but it doesn't even get that close. It's just It's to shoot'em up, kill'em up, stab'em up uh guns, arrows, knives, grenades, a like everything. But in the end, while it's happening, while you're watching, while you're trying to take this in, it's just not interesting.

So when it comes to this um this bar, you know, obviously this compound has seemed to be operational lot enough to, you know, develop these standardized responses to crises, right? Like so the murder that the Ant Rights encounter is not an anomaly that is requiring these sort of like impromptu solutions. You know, the existence of a cleanup protocol indicates that such situations have already occurred before and are likely to happen again.

So the compound in itself possesses this institutional memory. You know, in the most literal sense, it is a go and concern. It's durable, methodical. You know, it's akin to any legitimate business sustained by these fundamental elements. You know, we have this hierarchy, you know, capital loyalty, uh the the tacit acceptance of those who are aware, but choose not to inquire any further. And I think that's probably the film's most unsettling political argument. You know, here we have

these violent white supremacist organizations who are not composed of uniquely monstrous individuals acting in defiance of you know society norms. No, they're sustained by the same mechanisms that support any institution. Now we have this radio host. uh who was conducting this interview with the band, who is the one who directs the Ain't rights to Darcy's bar, uh who, you know, learned about the gig through his cousin Daniel, you know, who is also a member uh of this compound.

And you know whether the host was aware of what he was leading the band into, you know, the film deliberately leaves that ambiguous. You know, that ambiguity is intentional. So the network support in Darcy, you know, extends far beyond the compound. You know, it permeates ordinary social relationships, you know, these family connections and casual referrals. You know, it's a kind of social fabric that binds any sort of community.

You know, it's the boundaries are impossible to discern from the outside because it lacks clear uh demarcations. You know, it infiltrates the surrounding community through these countless small acts of indifference, willful ignorance, you know, quiet complicity. And when we're talking about this sort of like forensic uh you know, cleanup protocol.

You know, that's a pretty significant symbol. You know, we have this checklist, you know, complete with its own unique vocabulary that they use. We have different categories. You know, we even have an entry for what they call meat wool. You know it's not the product of just a few unhinged individuals improvising during a crisis. No, it's this culmination of accumulated experiences refined over time that represented uh solutions to recurrent problems that have necessitated standardization.

There's a checklist that provides evidence of a history that the film doesn't really explicitly depict. No history of other incidents, victims, you know, other nights that ended similarly to this. And were methodically erased. You know, the int rights are not the first and the protocol nearly ensures that they're not going to be the last.

So not that I haven't been mad enough yet, but this is where I'm gonna get madder. I think this this protocol that you're referring to has a real world parallel. And I think the real world parallel is a little thing that was at one point called the final solution.

I think when I got to that point and I heard that and it's like, okay, we have to do this thing, that was the place where I went in my head, Oh my fucking God, not only are you not treating The Holocaust with deference You're going out of your way to make parallels to it in your movie. Like, this is just how we'll deal with this. We have a cleanup crew. We have people that I think are are the metaphorical bulldozers, people that we have that are the metaphorical kind of gas chamber attendants.

and all these people that have these specific jobs. And I remember watching this and just getting madder and madder as I was watching it. Like, you've gotta be fucking kidding me And I think when it comes to movies, I mean I I I watch enough movies in the world where I think I I tend to be fairly enlightened and I and I tend to try to see artistic vision and I didn't see that there. I thought this was I thought this was callous. And

Callous and unnecessary. That's honestly what I thought it was. And watching as these parallels start coming together, especially towards the end, Ed, and especially when we've got The two people at the end of it sitting on the side of the road and just waiting for the authority. Well, there's another parallel there that I'm not even gonna get into'cause it'll make me so fucking mad I'll scream. I I yeah, I hmm I'm I'm gonna go back to fuck this movie and it doesn't need to exist. I I it

You can Nazis are a thing, right? They're a thing. We all know that they're a thing. Um we all know that there's gonna be somebody out there who has a creative idea to try to do that. Um there are so many movies from the past, and whether it's World War II movies, whether it's movies from you know the late sixties and early seventies, whether we get into things like American History X Where they show you who Nazis are. They they make no bones about it.

But they also go out of their way to let you know as a watcher and as somebody who is taking in this information and taking in this story. That these are not good people. And I honestly think that a little bit of this movie they're actually trying to put Nazis in a little bit of a better light and trying to show them as

Especially with these like skinhead neo Nazi people, that they're not just a bunch of backwoods idiots, that they're prepared and they can do things right and whatever else and it's like, Okay, do things right? What does that mean? And it's like I yeah, I just And I'm just fucking mad. I uh god damn it. I yeah, I hate this movie. I fucking hate it. And I'm just and I'm just mad and I I know why we watched it. I in a sense I'm glad I watched it. Um because I

got to see what the people that made this movie thought would be a good um a good story. Um And I'm here to tell you that it uh it wasn't for me. It absolutely wasn't. Um and I'm disappointed that in this day and age, and I think you know me, I hate woke culture, I hate cancel culture, I think stories should be able to be told. With as much sincerity and truthfulness and vision that people see. Um, I think the people that made this.

Basically we're trying to spitch sign, you know, a bronze swastika, and I didn't like it. Uh and uh I'm gonna leave it at that.

Yeah, so we have these these two subcultures uh coming to a head in this, you know, both of whom are you know organized around the performance of transgression. No, it's this deliberate theatrical violation of mainstream norms as a means of identity construction and community building. You know, they utilize music, aesthetics. rituals, uh, you know, and attire to establish, you know, their belonging and signal commitment. You know, both claim this.

uh authentic rejection uh uh of comfortable. You know, they demonstrate this willingness to say and do what, you know, polite convention for And while that resemblance is, you know, superficial in some respects, you know, it is structural in others and the film is I think it's more compelling when it embraces the d discomfort rather than resolving it. So for instance, like we have this this band who begin their set at this bar.

with the dead Kennedys Nazi punks fuck off. Uh which in itself serves as a piece of internal punk politics. You know, it's an argument uh about you know who belongs in punk and what punk truly represents. That was written in response to, you know, real neo-Nazi infiltration of California punk scenes back in the early nineteen eighties.

So when you're performing add this bar, you know, it's both This bold but ill-advised act, you know, it embodies this gesture of authenticity that makes little practical sense in the venue that's filled with these individuals who carry weapons and have forensic, you know, cleanup protocols in place.

You know, it kind of like illustrates punk central contradiction. You know, this is a genre that envisions itself as Resistant to power is being showcased to an audience that is represented some of the most concentrated and organized private violence within this film's universe. Now the ain't rights are, you know, in the truest sense, you know, posturing before an audience that is decidedly not.

Well, for me growing up, I mean, the punk metal bands and and I think I've told you, I went through high school, long haired, leather jacket, you know, all the things. You look at me now I'm fifty two, I'm fucking covered in tattoos, whatever. At the same time.

I work in an office, I make fucking six figures, and I'm living the fucking high life. So so what does that tell you? Is that say that I'm a sellout? No. Okay. What it tells you is that eventually you have to fucking grow up. That's what it boils down to. And to try to take the people that were in the truly in the punk movement and I think about like for me, um

It's super like everyone thinks the red hot chili peppers are great, right? Okay, well they made albums way before you thought they were great. And that was some good punk shit, right? That was some good punk stuff. And for the average person that found the average life and the average uh uh member of citizenry slightly disagreeable, like I totally get that. Okay? But it wasn't about

It wasn't about hating a group because of their religion or because of their skin color. It was about hating the establishment. I'm fifty-two and I'll tell you what, I still fucking hate the establishment, okay? I I it I look at

And it it sounds stupid, but I look at like what I pay in taxes and what I get for it. I look at what it costs to get tabs on my car. And it pisses me off'cause I get nothing for it. And If I was good at writing punk music and I had the energy and the the physicality to, you know, to bounce around on stage, I would fucking do it because it's a great way to get your message across.

But we're back to a point where they're trying to intermix these two and I'm I'm so glad that you did your research and and got into the stuff of the early eighties when there was that point where they were there was an infiltr an a a thorough and and pretty well executed attempt. of these neo-Nazi scumbag shitheads to try to infiltrate the punk scene because it was a bunch of people that were disenfranchised, right? And they had they had

They had no direction, nowhere to go, no one to lean on. And as soon as someone said, Hey, I can help you solve your problems, they fucking listened, right? And but within this. I hate to say this. This movie was made in twenty fifteen. If in twenty fifteen if you're trying hard to be a punk band, you miss the fucking boat by about thirty-five years. Like i so just

You wanna be disenfranchised, you wanna sing your thing, g go ahead and do it. But like you were in the wrong scene to start with. And None of the people that we saw here in our band screamed funk to me, right? They screamed people that shop that shopped at Goodwill and got dressed in the dark. That's what that's what they screamed to me. And So even like They were supposed to be the representation of it, but it didn't sell it for me because I was alive at a point where I saw what punk was.

You know, people people playing shows in somebody's fucking shed because the shed was big enough and someone just cleaned it out. You know? And It was never being in a punk band was never about getting the next gig and paying the bills. It was just about being somewhere and playing. And so for them to make it a stretch to be like, and as far as the DJ goes,

I'm gonna completely go against what you say and I and I'm gonna call the DJ a fucking recruiter for these fucking neo Nazi assholes and he knew exactly what he was doing. I honestly believe that. equally dislikable on the scale of all the Nazis, it was that guy because I think he led them right into a trap and he knew what he was doing. I honestly believe he knew what he was doing. Yeah. So in in the end th th this whole thing for me, the message

For the air that this movie was made, the message was broken and too late. The punk band was not believable as people that would actually be in a punk band. That they were just a bunch of whiny fucking pussies who didn't want to work for a living. And our group of Nazi guys were probably the only believable people because they were all fucking assholes. You know, and it when you start seeing the parallels to everything and just it's one of those things where it's

If I don't like a movie, I I can usually grumble about it and then move on with my life. I'm gonna be grumbling about this movie for years. For years. Because it was so Bad isn't the word. It wasn't a bad movie. It was it was well produced, it was well shot, it had a really good setting, the cinematography was good. To me the overarching message here was, Hey, Nazis are alive and well, join the party and it was like, No thank you. So I and

I don't know why that message needs to be shared and and I would argue that it really does not need to be and people that try to share that message should probably be in prison. So There we go. I mean if that the the whole part of like if you don't loon learn from history you're doomed to repeat it. This felt like a pro-Nazi piece of propaganda. That's what it felt like to me. And that's why it made me so fucking mad.

Yeah, here um the green room is serving as both this physical and epistemological space. You know, it's a set in where, you know, this stark reality of the situation becomes undeniable and immediate. You know, we strip away The comfortable uncertainty that typically allows the life to proceed unimpeded.

You know, the war of being trapped in the green room extends beyond just physical danger. You know, it lies within the clarity that it provides. You know, within this space, you know, you're acutely aware of your adversaries, you know, their intentions, the consequences of the inaction. you know, having that sort of clarity uh is a form of privilege not afforded by the outside world, you know, where threats are pervasive yet elusive. And it certainly offers this refuge for those who seek it.

And for most of the middle section of this movie, you know, our band, you know, takes on this, you know. Pretty classical horror protagonist role, you know, hesitant to fully grasp the severity of the predicament that they're in. You know, they await intervention from institutional mechanisms. you know, in this case being the law enforcement, uh, you know, or other authority

authority bodies uh to restore normalcy. No, the film metically argues that, you know, no such intervention will occur. So when the police are eventually summoned, you know, it is by Darcy's associates. You know, the institutions ostensibly designed to protect individuals like, you know, the ain't rights in this case, are either absent, compromised, or they're too sluggish to be affected.

So what you just said there is why this movie completely falls apart. Completely. It's you just pulled out the foundational stone and the whole thing just fucking crumbled. Because we have this badass punk band who is anti establishment, is damn the man, blah, blah, blah, whatever else. And then something bad happens and who are they screaming for? The cops to save them. Mm-hmm. Okay. And that right there is where you're just like Okay.

I didn't really give a shit about your message before and now that I know that you're Not only are you not anti establishment, not anti all these things, it you you're struggling to even barely take care of yourselves. Now again, it's a survival thing, so you could say that it was a unique situation. Um I mean I would agree with that. But at the same time it's you know When I think about like anti-establishment movies, um and things where it's like you really get to see

A slice of society. And you know, I'm talking about, you know, things beyond like the the documentaries of the sex pistols, you know, Sid and Nancy, things like that. I think of one movie that is like might be the best anti-establishment movie ever and it's called Empire Records. I'm not sure if you've ever seen that. If you haven't, put it on your list because you would love it. And that is what I think actual anti establishment looks at. It's people that do the things that they're doing.

They get the results that they get. They understand that they might not be perfect, but they keep doing what they're doing anyway. Because that's what being anti-establishment is. It's about never bowing to the man. And

With these guys? Yeah, it's like we'll just we'll just lock the doors and do all this and wait for the cops to show up. And I'm like, Well yeah, that's how very anti establishment is like, uh just one more thing that just pissed me off. It's like If you're gonna try to drag me in with an anti-establishment movie and and a person who, again, lived through the early eighties and the punk movement and what happened with it, you gotta do a hell of a lot better than you did.

Yeah, when this came out, um the there was kind of this tradition going on in American horror when it comes to shifting the source of violence f away from you know the supernatural. More into the tangible and the familiar. You know, earlier horror films, you know, had positioned their monsters at A pretty considerable distance from us as the audience.

No, they were often set of them in these foreign castles, you know, remote islands, colonial territories, uh imagined as these inherently dark and dangerous, you know. Talking about like films like, you know, Dracula, King Khan, King of the Zombies. You know, that depict these intrepid travelers encounter these monsters in places that were distinctly not home. And the narrative

uh established in implicit geography of safety. You know, monsters had originated from elsewhere while home remained to be uh the security. You know, that perspective was comforted and politically convenient for that time. Uh so it was suggesting that threats to civilization came from outside the boundaries. And then we kinda like shifted a little bit. Um, you know, kinda like in the mid fifties. I think invasion of the body snatchers would be a good uh point for this.

uh in regards to shifting in the narrative. You know, that's when we had these monsters infiltrating these, you know, smaller towns. You know, that was said in uh California. Uh so it was indistinguishable uh from neighbors and family. So the threat was no longer exotic, but it was domestic, you know, it was suburban, and it was disguised as ordinary.

And that was back when, you know, a lot of like Cold War politics were evident, you know, having this fear uh is of internal subversion and ideological contamination had macerated as normality. You know, the monster had moved from, you know, these distant castles into, you know, the house next door. It was where in the face of our neighbors.

And then, you know, we fast forward a bit into the nineteen seventies and then we see, you know, kind of like the further uh transformation of this. That's when we had, you know, films like Texas Trainsaw Massacre, The Hills of Eyes. where we were eliminating the supernatural entirely. You know, we replaced it with human beings, you know, these degraded, violent, you know, distinctively, uh distinctly American. You know, the monsters in those films.

were not foreign invaders or ideological threats, you know, they were products of the same society as their victim. You know, they're stranded in these neglected margins where economic and social infrastructures had deteriorated or had never existed in the first place. So Those films had really suggested that this is what America looks like in kind of like the forgotten corners, you know, when you strip away the veneer.

You know, we have this empty America as the the set in where it's you know vast underpopulated interior where these laws and norms of the coast don't quite reach, you know, where violence is endemic and accountability is completely at Well I think you're absolutely right with every point you made there. And with this film it comes at I mean, we're probably a decade or more into where we really get

the Monster Is Us films. You know, with things like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I mean it was it was human versus human, but there was so many underlying things that it was just like You couldn't relate to the other side, so it still kept the human and the monster apart. And then you get like into the early and mid two thousands where you have things like hostile and things like that where it's like, no, the monster is just a human being.

But those early movies, they always managed to set it in kind of like you said, some place like Europe, some place isolated where it was like But it's not your neighbor. Okay. It's it it's just not your neighbor. And I think this movie is trying to give you that a a little bit of that, yeah, the monster is your neighbor, but

At the same time it's like I think if your if your neighbor was a Nazi, I th I think you'd see, you know, more cars out in his driveway and, you know, music and and whatever else. So it's just

I like I said, I see what they were trying to do here. I I I think they did not give They did not give enough grace to what the to what the the Holocaust actually was. I think they treated they treated that memory quite shabbily. And they gave me a whole host of characters where I didn't really care what happened to anybody. And when you get to that place and you just lose interest, it makes it easier to look at a movie and to pick out the negative. And

I generally d actually try not to do that. I try to pick out the positive things in movies where it's like, well, this this wasn't super good, but these three things really were good, so that makes it okay. This movie had nothing for me. And Again, if I if I tear away the production value, which was quite good, if I tear away the the setting, which was quite good, the you know, the punk band dingy bars that they were in, all things that I really enjoy.

it it it felt like a guy sitting in a corner trying to spit shine a swastika and he was just waiting to show it to you and see if you'd join. And yeah, it's not something that I can appreciate. Now I know not everyone's gonna feel that way and I'm and I'm not trying to say that everyone that likes this movie is a i i is a buddy neo Nazi. That's not what I'm saying.

It's just what I took away from the movie. And like I said, it's been a long time since I've watched the movie and at the end of it I was so fucking mad I didn't know what to do with myself. Um, like like unhinged anger. Like I and it's So to say that it made me feel something I think goes without saying. Um but at the same time, it was just so profoundly negative and

For in my head and y you know how movies go. So like some days you're watching a movie and you've got five categories it tells you whether it's good. You watch other movies and you might have fifty categories. This is the one where I had a lot of categories and I could not find a single one that was like, Oh, this is redeeming. Couldn't find it and that's that's rare. Um

It feels like one of those ones where I think I need to let my anger settle and then watch it again and and see if I get something different. Um But I'd be kinda surprised if I did. Mm. I I would tend to agree with that. Uh, in your case. Uh now what I will say is when it comes to the end in um

It feels like a unsparing gesture, right? Like we have Pat and Amber who walk out of this forest, you know, having killed Darcy, you know, having survived something that should have killed him in this case. Uh and you know Ends it there. You know, we have no rescue arrival, we have no authority figure appearing to restore order, you know, no narrative mechanism to close the wound. You know, they just sit there in the trees, exhausted and bleed. And the film just cuts away without ceremony.

And it's one of those things where it's like it's a refusal of resolution that functions as I don't want to say. They're trying to make it as like an argument, you know, here Darcy's dead, you know, the film is clear-eyed about what his death does and does not accomplish, you know, it creates this sort of vacancy within this, you know, organization.

No, it doesn't really touch the infrastructure, the i ideology, the hierarchy, the supply chains, all the social networks. Yada yada yada, you know where I'm going. Uh, but it's still like it remains invisible to the outside world. So you know the damage inflicted on this particular, you know, m manifestation of violence, you know, is real, it's local. But the organism that it belongs to is still large, it's still distributed.

You know, this is something that is has no vital organ whose destruction would bring the rest of it down. You know, it will heal and it always has.

Yeah, it definitely leaves you in a place where you feel like they've killed the king, but not the kingdom. And There's definitely this piece where you're like, you know, what's gonna happen next? What's gonna pop out? What's the stinger gonna be? The hard part for me in the end is that I hated the characters so much that even the two that survived, it was like, Yeah, okay, good for you. Like I just didn't I just didn't care. Um The only I mean truly the only interesting piece is

So where does this organization go from there? What do they do next? Um because that that hierarchy was one of the few interesting things in the film. Because it seemed like people were still I mean honestly kind of all over the place and it sorta took a minute to figure out who was who and who outranked who and, you know, uh who was capable of doing what. And, you know, there's clearly a bunch of people that were just, you know, cannon fodder, obviously.

And but then you get to a place where you're like, Oh great, I'm watching a movie where the only interesting characters are the fucking Nazis, son of a bitch. And then it's like then I I honestly then I'm just back to being mad again. It's like, okay, so again Uh th this this movie it it should be scrubbed from the world, every trace of it. Um uh anybody that had a part in being it made should probably do prison time. And then beyond that, it should just be one of those things that

Let's go full nineteen eighty four and even if you whisper it in the streets you might get hauled in and and rubber hosed.'Cause I I just I just did not like this movie, man. And I I I I know it's it's become redundant, but

Oh, this movie just it it just made me mad. And and maybe maybe that's one of those things where maybe the people that made it maybe that was the point. Maybe that was the point to find somebody like me and just make me mad as fucking hell. Well, if that was the point then good job. Wonderful. 10 out of 10 for effort. Um in terms of a compelling story, compelling characters, or an overarching story that you can get behind, you had none of that. So again, well done. Yeah.

Yeah, so with that being said, I'll uh I'll say my last bit and then uh we will move on to the next bit. Uh so No, after after all after everything, all said and done, you know, really the result of this kind of like lands in this familiar and honestly frustrating place, right? You know, here we have this film that is more serious than most things working in its red. You know and it's less serious than its best moment suggest it could have.

So when we have that sort of like a gap between those two positions, you know it's It just comes off as this aesthetic failure. You know, it maps onto something that is real about, you know, how American culture, you know, broadly handles whiteness. You know, it names it more readily than it once did. You know, it frames it as you know, the subject of you know, serious films and serious conversations while still trying to gravitate towards resolutions that contain

That level of discomfort rather than sustain it. You know, here our villain is defeated just in numbers alone, not completely like wiped off, right? You know, our survivors will walk away. But us as the audience, like we're we're allowed to feel something And, you know, it just it doesn't feel resolved when all of a sudden it's done. We have, you know, the dog coming back, you know, but you know, the trees don't care.

The Green World uh in this case is the film's final images and it insists with just this quiet relentlessness uh that it just continues exactly on as it was. Hmm.

Well I think in the end, I mean, America is known as the melting pot, right? And it's and it's known as the melting pot for a reason. It's because it to make this country great, it takes bits and pieces of everywhere to make it great. To make to make our country uh culturally sound and culturally interesting. You have to just keep expanding what that definition is.

Now I think it's true to say that there are people that come here and don't want to assimilate and take advantage of everything and trust me, I live in Minnesota, so we're finding that shit out first hand. But it doesn't mean that we don't need different people here. Um and to to walk out in your front yard and decree, only white people are good. Well, I mean that's just the stupidest fucking thing that anyone's ever thought or said ever. Because um uh people

Uh and people that are assholes uh are are much like a rainbow. They they come in every color. Okay. So yeah, one is not inherently better than the other. People people need to be judged by their character, not by their religion or I think we live in a place and we've definitely gotten to a point in the world where everybody is offended by everything. So when it comes to something like Our our scumbag neo Nazis.

I mean maybe the one redeeming thing is that the the only thing that they were offended by is that you weren't white. I mean th to to to say that neo Nazities might be less sensitive than woke Democrats, that's that's interesting. It's like, hmm, wow, okay.

But it's another example of where people just need to fucking calm down. People need to be who they are. Y you need to let people live as they may live and If it weren't for all the people that have come to this country over the fucking history of time, I mean

Who came here first? Well there was some Spanish, okay, so and then then there was some Irish and then there was some this and there was some that and Whether it's the design of your house, the styling of your car, the the embroidered thing on the pocket of your jeans. Some other culture somewhere contributed to something on that. And it might be small, and maybe it's not intrinsic of their culture, but somebody contributed because.

It it's kinda like you said at the at the beginning of this, if you and I agreed on everything uh like on these movies, what would be the fucking point of talking about it? There'd be no point. It's like, yes, yes, Glenn, you are absolutely right. I completely concur with your point. Well thank you, Grindhouse. That's perfect. That would be boring as hell, right? So If if nothing else than to just get other opinions on things, we need everybody. We just we just need everybody. And

In this case it just so happens that uh my opinion is that everybody in this movie sucks and I I hate them all, I hate their philosophies. I I even got to the point where I hated the punk band because they kind of butt turned into a bunch of whiny little bitches. I if the movie leaves you with nothing else, it's like

Almost everybody in this movie's philosophy was wrong. Almost everybody. The Nazis were wrong. The punk band was wrong. It's like, hey, you want to be in a punk band? That's absolutely fucking perfect. Go be in a punk band. In the meantime, you're gonna have to find a way to support yourself so the world doesn't have to do it while you're chasing your dream.

And I don't care if chasing your dream is being in a punk band, being a tattoo artist, if you want to be a guy who does sidewalk chalk on the weekends for the world to see. Great. In the meantime, get a job and take care of yourself. Okay? Then you can do whatever the hell you want. And that, that is the actual American dream, and that's what all these other people, black, brown, white, purple, red, blue, whatever else, come here to do is

to do their little part of the American dream and when they're not doing that, they can chase whatever it is the hell they want. Mm-hmm. And That's what makes this country great. And Having a sea of fucking white people making the rules. You know what? We've already proved. That doesn't fucking work.

Okay. It takes all kinds. We gotta we gotta let everyone have a say and everyone's gotta gotta weigh in and hey, you know what? If you don't like the religion or you don't like the food or you don't like whatever else, don't fucking eat there. Okay. That that's all that's that's all you have to do. Otherwise shut the fuck up. And yeah, I'm I'm really surprised how fired up I am and how mad this fucking movie made me. And but to your earlier point.

It did make for a good discussion. So um, you know Well, I'm I'm clearly not a racist. You're clearly not a racist. Um everybody else, here's a thought. Don't be a racist. Walk out walk out in the world, shake your neighbor's hand, and I don't give a fuck what color he is. Get along because because it's easier

It it will m have less stress in your life if you have a heavy item of furniture to move, that neighbor might help you. And they also might introduce you to some really good food. You never fucking know. So just try it. It's simple. It's just uh Yeah, fuck Nazis. That's it. I'm I'm done.

All right, so with that being said, guys, again, just as a reminder, we are streaming in Discord movie nights every Tuesday and Thursday night at 7.30 p.m. Pacific time. Uh so again, hope to see you there tomorrow for our next one.

Uh we will have another episode to drop in later in the week. I'll be releasing our next episode, which will be on ten Cloverfield Lane. Uh I'll drop that one on Sunday just so people have time to, you know, make sure to listen to this one and then they can move on to the next that way. They're just not being flooded on the podcast feed. Uh so looking forward to that discussion here in just a few minutes. But in the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy your week. Uh go out.

Go sport the cinema. We got uh a couple of uh similar titles, but hey, that's fine. We'll see which one comes out ahead. Cause uh I'd say like Pretty happy with Ready or Not 2. Hopefully they will kill you. We'll also have a lot of fun moments to it as well. Time will tell on that front. But for now, that will do it for us here tonight on Hando with Scare. We'll see you next week. Have a good night.