Hold The Dark

"Do you have a child?"

"Yes, shes teaching at a university down in Anchorage."

Down in Anchorage. Three words paint a scary picture. Look at a map of Alaska. Anchorage is at the bottom. Above it is an expanse of country that tests the limits of human endurance. It's a place people are not meant to live in. Especially people who aren't indigenous. It's the kind of place that would make you wonder why on earth anyone would choose to live there. What they have to hide? What are they running from? Hold The Dark is about these people and the outsider who discovers just how dark and cold things can get up there.

Keelut is a tiny village in Northern Alaska. A child has been taken and wolves are suspected. Russell Core, a lupine expert is contacted by Medora Sloane, the child's mother, and asked to come to Keelut and kill the wolf responsible. Medora wants to show her husband Vernon, who's fighting in Iraq, that revenge has been taken. Vernon arrives home suddenly having different plans however.

Oh Jesus this is a dark, brutal and bleak watch. It's very good but make no mistake, you won't be in a good mood when this is over. You'll be rattled, maybe a little traumatised, definitely a bit nauseous and despite the blanket you'll watch it from under, you'll feel frozen. Jeremy Saulnier has made a fine film that's strangely beautiful, very atmospheric and despite a final third that will frustrate some it's easily one of the best Netflix original films so far. It's a mystery that turns into a thriller that feels like a western but has horror overtones. A heady mix indeed that mostly works.

On the surface it's a mystery but before long you'll realise it's packed full of thematic goodness. Asides on the predatory nature of man and the effects that isolation have on a species that needs society to survive will give you something meaty to chew on during the slower moments between the horrifying bursts of violence that Saulnier does so well. One surprising scene that homages both Terminator and Terminator 2 will drop your jaw at the carnage on display. In any other film this would be the climax but here it's casually dropped into the middle of proceedings. It takes a confident writer/director to continue a story after that.

But proceed it does and it's here the film suffers a bit. At moments it nearly slows to a halt and it takes on a strange almost mystical tone that feels at odds with what has gone before. It's not out of the blue, especially considering some of the earlier dialogue but it's just duller than what came already. Luckily we've superb actors like Jeffrey Wright, Riley Keough, Alexander Skarsgård and the always great James Badge Dale to carry us through the lulls.Wright as Russell is a morose lead but Skarsgård as Vernon is flat out terrifying. All dead eyed and robotic. Scarier than any wolf. An early scene of him in Iraq lays out the stall of the film and contains a grim moment of violence that might prove too much for some. Keough (grand daughter of Elvis, fact fans) as Medora plays her as a haunted, troubling presence. Badge Dale as a police chief is a face I always enjoy seeing turn up. I'm baffled why he isn't a bigger star.

Hold The Dark is an intelligent and sombre watch that some will find off-putting due to its more visceral moments and it's glacial (boom boom) pace but it's really worth a watch especially if you want to see the direction Saulnier is taking after his previous films Blue Ruin and Green Room. I'm amazed he didn't call this Red Snow tbh. It's a pretty perfect name for it.