This article contains spoilers for the film Green Room (2016)

In April, a 40 foot tall mural went up on the side of a building of a gay club in downtown Providence. It featured slain Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska and was in the process of being installed by a local artist. The mural was part of an extensive “curation” project all across the United States, featuring this woman’s image, funded by alt-right leaders such as Elon Musk, Eoghan McCabe, and Andrew Tate. Suddenly, they do care about immigrants – if you’re the white kind.

Zarutska became a symbol for conservatives nationally when the video of her stabbing on public transportation in Charlotte, North Carolina, was released. Her assailant, Decarlos Brown Jr., who had a long criminal record and documented but untreated mental health issues, is a black man. Trump called for the immediate death penalty for him. Zarutska, as a result, became an opportunity for the far right to weaponize her tragedy, using her image as a racist dog whistle. Notably, North Carolina passed a law “in her honor” that shortens the timeline for capital punishment appeals and removes restrictions on the use of electrocution and lethal gas.

Providence, however, pushed back. Community members protested the mural. The club owners requested its removal. Mayor Brett Smiley condemned the project after its political backing became clear. In the end, it was decommissioned. The backlash, however, quickly attracted national attention and with it, right-wing outrage. Days later, a white nationalist group had a photo-op in front of the unfinished mural – in broad daylight. That’s right, this mural inspired neo-nazis to take selfies in front of a gay bar in Providence.

Why Green Room Feels More Relevant Than Ever

White supremacist movements have become increasingly visible and emboldened in the United States, encouraged by mainstream political rhetoric. These men infiltrate our communities and subcultures, using intimidation and spectacle to spread fear. Green Room confronts that reality head-on, portraying neo-Nazis not as caricatures, but as organized, violent, and disturbingly common. Nearly a decade later, Jeremy Saulnier’s claustrophobic thriller feels more relevant than ever, not only for its depiction of fascist violence, but for its understanding of how young men are drawn into these movements in the first place.

Green Room is a nail-biting, contained setting horror-thriller set in the Pacific Northwest. The Ain’t Rights, a small punk band played by Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, and the late, great Anton Yelchin, struggling to make even their gas money back while performing, are arranged to play a show, unknowingly, at a bar in the woods run by skinheads. They open for a neo-nazi band, taunting the crowd with a cover of the Dead Kennedys’ “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.” Tensions escalate even further, however, when Yelchin’s character sees a dead woman, stabbed to death in the green room by one of the skin-heads playing the venue. This leads to an all-night fight for survival for the band, as they try to make it out of the venue alive.

A majority of the film involves a siege between the band, barricaded in the green room, and the skinhead leader Darcy, played menacingly by Sir Patrick Stewart, outside it with his army of neo-Nazis. As the reality of the situation escalates, and the negotiations go awry with Darcy and co., the band slowly realizes there is no reasoning with these men; they cannot be trusted. Soon these punks must use whatever items they have in the green room as a means to fight off the well-armed skinheads.

Jeremy Saulnier’s Neo-Nazis Are Terrifyingly Real

What makes Green Room’s portrayal of these Neo-Nazis all the more grounded and terrifying is that Saulnier portrays the group as organized, calculated, and incredibly dangerous. He avoids creating caricatures; they aren’t seen marching, nor is their ideology discussed through a spoon-feeding Netflix algorithm type of way. Of course, there are hints of their bigotry through lines of dialogue, but their terror is shown rather than explained.

Sir Patrick Stewart depicts Darcy as an organized, even-keeled businessman, using violence as a necessary means to clean up the situation (aka dispose of all the band members and make it appear like a trespassing gone awry.) He is deliberate, calm, and premeditated, as he uses his dedicated and loyal soldiers to reach his goals and maintain control.

The History of Nazi Punk and Hate Core Music

Hate Core or Nazi Punk is a hateful and bigoted subgenre of punk music that emerged in the 1970s in the United Kingdom and eventually made its way over to the United States in the 1980s. While skin-heads originally began as an English working-class movement, it eventually segmented and became co-opted by white nationalists.

Early punk music often used symbols as shock value. Some would wear swastika arm-bands, and others might wear a hammer and sickle, using transgressive imagery to lean into the nihilism or anarchy of the music. By the 1980s, however, a division was apparent, and Nazi punks began using hardcore and punk music as a means to spread far-right ideologies and recruit listeners. While punk music thematically is predominantly anti-fascist, Hate Core uses the intensity, nihilism, and aggression of punk as a tool for fascist propaganda.

The contradiction is baffling. Nazi punks align themselves with music rife with anti-establishment themes, while also clinging to their conformity and blind obedience to their leaders. We see this in the film, as skinheads mosh to the Ain’t Rights in one scene, and obey Darcy’s every command in the next.

Green Room and the Recruitment of Young Men Into Extremism

Scholar Kevin Grether writes in “Heavy and Hateful: Growth of White Supremacy and Neo-Nazism in Skinhead Punk and Black Metal”: “Although [skin-head punk was not] explicitly political at its inception, fascist actors within them were able to take advantage of the social and economic situations of their peers in order to recruit them to their political cause. For skinheads, this was done primarily by Ian Stuart Donaldson and his connections with the National Front, who used their social and economic influence within the subculture (such as ownership of venues) to press party recruitment.”

Green Room does an exceptional job of demonstrating the recruitment of young men by these hate groups and their exploitation of them as a result. It is apparent that Darcy does not seem to care about the music that is played at his bar, but he understands it as a tool to lure more young men to his cause. (We later learn that the venue is a front for a heroin production lab.)

We witness two young recruits non-lethally stab one another and be detained in order to throw off the police from the current situation with the band. These young men do this without hesitation, sacrificing themselves in hopes of Darcy’s approval. Later, we witness two frightened young men, clumsily entering the green room as ordered by leadership to finish off whoever is left of the band.

At all costs, they want to please their leader, Darcy. In an interview from 2016, Saulnier notes, “you gotta ask, not only what are [they] fighting for but who are [they] fighting for? Because it seems to be that these young skinheads…aren’t really benefiting from this battle.”

The Modern Manosphere and the Appeal of Extremist Masculinity

Similar tactics of recruitment are currently prevalent in the new, rising “manosphere”, as more young men gravitate toward internet personas and politicians that espouse a kind of masculinity rooted in misogyny, racism, and homophobia. These men prey on the male loneliness epidemic, which is a sharp increase in reported isolation, lack of close friendships, and social disconnection among men in the United States. This manosphere normalizes gender-based violence, racism, and other extremist, bigoted ideologies, united under the belief that men are victims of social change.

These movements create a false sense of community for men, rooted in antagonism, that only really serves those in leadership (like the fictional Darcy or the very real Andrew Tate.) As a result, these movements create further division and danger for us all, while a few men at the top reap the benefits. As the language of these movements permeates mainstream culture and seeps into online forums and media, it is important for us to not only understand why they appeal to young men, but also how to intervene.

Green Room’s Ending and the Fragility of Fascist Power

At the end of Green Room, Yelchin’s character Pat has Darcy at gunpoint. He says to him, “It’s funny. You were so scary at night.” In an almost anti-climax, Darcy turns his back to Pat and power walks away in cowardice. Pat and other lone-survivor Amber shoot him in the back, killing him.

As I initially looked at the photo of the white nationalists posing in front of that unfinished mural in Providence, the image inspired the same fear Saulnier captures so well: organized hatred displayed openly and without shame. But then, I noticed the masks. I noticed how few of them there are. Like Darcy, their power depends on spectacle, numbers, and intimidation. Strip that away, and what remains are just frightened men desperately clinging to power.

That does not make them harmless; it makes them perceivable and interruptible. As Saulnier depicts the inner operations of a neo-Nazi group, he shows us how hatred can be furthered and codified. It is imperative that we remember that operation in order to undo it. If these movements recruit through isolation, fear, and false belonging, then resistance cannot rely solely on condemnation. It also requires intervention. Stronger community structures and programs that teach healthier models of masculinity, and spaces where young men can find identity without bigotry are critical.

Why Green Room Still Resonates 10 Years Later

On its 10 year anniversary, Green Room remains terrifying because it recognizes fascism not as parodically evil, but as something tragically ordinary. It also remains incredibly pertinent as we look at the current rise of alt-right and fascist movements and try to understand how such hatred can become so pervasive.