We kick off the first volume of Hollywood Babylon on Friday, January 10th with the fresh post-punk stylings of Chicago’s Early Country at 8:30pm, backed with a 10th anniversary screening of Jeremy Saulnier’s berserk, neo-Nazi-slasher Green Room (2015) at 9:45pm.

Green Room (2015) is probably the first true punk rock horror film. Yeah, in the past there’s been zombie flicks like The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and Wild Zero (1995), or movies where a guy with a mohawk gets it, but this is the first time someone brought a real-life fear for a DIY touring band to the big screen.  

Anyone who has been in a band knows that a lot of the time you’re putting your band’s reputation, or life, in the hands of complete strangers. Green Room takes that unspoken fear, that a friend-of-a-friend might not actually be cool, and carries it to the punk rock extreme – what if they sent you into a building full of actual, literally Nazis?  

Featuring brilliant performances by the late Anton Yelchin as the bassist of the Ain’t Rights and Patrick Stewart as a Tom Metzger styled neo-Nazi leader, Green Room understands punk in a way that a lot of other punksploitation films don’t bother even attempting. This film isn’t just a coming-of-age story with a punk soundtrack or an anti-establishment story with a leather jacket and a mohawk. Green Room gets down to the punk rock band as gang mentality, the excitement and fear of the open road in the horrifically vast and empty U.S.A., and punk as resistance and survival. And in this case literally fighting for your life.  

The skins and punks in the ‘80s and ‘90s worked hard to try to rid the scene of Nazis, but here in 2025 they’re not just in the pit but in the halls of government. So, it looks like the perfect time for the kids to be united yet again, and Green Room is perfect cathartic inspiration.