15 Best Films Of 2016 (So Far)

Nowadays, yelping at something on screen (that isn’t just a cheap jump scare) feels like a concept from a different era. We’re too hardened know to run out during Psycho, too jaded to really fear The Exorcist, but Jeremy Saulnier proves that wrong; It is still possible to scream in the cinema. I saw Green Room in a screening room full of critics and there were at least five moments where people (myself included) verbally exclaimed at some of the horrors he’s realised.

Punk rockers versus neo-nazis (with Patrick Stewart leading the latter to boot) is quite a hook as it is, but it’s the relentless threat that makes Green Room such an effective thriller. It's a slow-burn build, with the gang, trapped after going backstage when they shouldn't, realising things are getting deadly in sudden jolts of escalating violence (realised with haunting make-up work).

There is a bigger plot at work that you could almost call the driving mystery, but it feels so secondary to the straight escape plight that you'll forget it swiftly after viewing. That's not really a criticism though - it does its job and if anything being side-lined ramps up the intensity at hand.