Honest Violence in William Giraldi’s Hold the Dark When he stood in that entranceway he saw into the glassless window, through one rounded room into another: a soldier with a scalp of honey down, wearing Slone’s own colors, his flag, from his company or not—his eyes still burned from sweat and smoke. Shot in the frigid tundras of Alberta, and centered on an eight-minute shootout that has a higher body count than all of the director’s previous films combined, the gnarly and contemplative “Hold the Dark” finds Saulnier expanding his examination of violence across an epic canvas. Hold the Dark Critics Consensus. "Hold the Dark is a powerful meditation on nature, violence and responsibility with the concentration of a fable or fever dream. HOLD THE DARK looks to be dark, thrilling, and more than a little disturbing. Try keep your mind open. It is based upon the novel of the same name by William Giraldi and stars Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough, Tantoo Cardinal, and Julian Black Antelope. The cold is a character in Hold The Dark, defining everything everyone does, defining who these people will become all the way down in their souls. It's 2019, and teenager Jonas (Louis Hofmann) has returned after spending some time in a mental hospital to help him cope with his father's suicide. After the deaths of three children suspected to be killed by wolves, writer Russell Core is hired by the the mother of a missing six-year-old boy to track down and locate her son in the Alaskan wilderness. Jeremy Saulnier's career has been a lot like one of his movies: The dial starts at 11 and just keeps steadily ramping up from there. Director Jeremy Saulnier has made a name for himself with ultra-violent, existential thrillers Blue Ruin and Green Room, and his latest twists that into something even more primal about the human condition. Netflix's Hold The Dark is a pitch black movie with an ambiguous ending - from the wolves to the humans in wolf's clothing. Indonesian Folklore of Vengeful Female Ghosts Hold Symbols of Violence Against Women The female ghost in Indonesia’s most recent horror movie is scary. Hold the Dark is a 2018 American thriller film directed by Jeremy Saulnier from a screenplay by Macon Blair. But it blends its hard-bit realism with an epic sense of mythology. Set contrapuntally in Alaska and Iraq, the work invokes radical violence. Yes, Hold the Dark may appeal to people who enjoyed No Country For Old Men and Winter's Bone. There are scenes of graphic violence throughout the film that might startle viewers; A soldier shoots down a group of enemy soldiers with some blood detail; A man stabs a man raping a woman repeatedly in the chest with blood spraying out of the side of his chest; A man gets grazed by a bullet through the side of his neck blood gushes from his wound Thomas McGuane "Snow, ice, wolves, murder, and dark love are encountered in Hold the Dark… There are scenes of graphic violence throughout the film that might startle viewers; A soldier shoots down a group of enemy soldiers with some blood detail; A man stabs a man raping a woman repeatedly in the chest with blood spraying out of the side of his chest; A man gets grazed by a bullet through the side of his neck blood gushes from his wound A video essay examining the way Hold The Dark (2018) discusses violence and human nature. Saulnier has proved that one of his primary focuses as a storyteller is violence, its perpetuation, and what it does to people, both physically and metaphorically. Why Does the Far Right Hold a Near-Monopoly on Political Violence? A book hard to get out of your mind long after you've put it down." Put another way, I missed an intuition of violence [End Page 157] that may finally resist easy judgments. Hold the Dark is the type of film you allow your brain to pluck at before fully deciding how enjoyable it is. With Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough. “Hold the Dark” occasionally explodes into stunning violence, particularly an extended shoot-out sequence with local police, including one well-played by James Badge Dale, also the star of an excellent TIFF Midnight Madness film, “The Standoff at Sparrow Creek.” Clearly, all the ingredients are there.