Summoned to a remote Alaskan village to search for the wolves that killed three children, a wolf expert soon finds himself unraveling a harrowing mystery.
Considering the (pardon the expression) glacial pace of much of the lead-up, Hold the Dark's eruption into massacre-level violence is jarring. Once it takes hold, it is relentless and grueling.
Actually, a whole mess of things are amiss, and the longer you stick with Hold the Dark, the more you'll realize that when a local cop (James Badge Dale) says, "I'm not convinced the answers exist," he's speaking for all of us.
[Hold the Dark] strives to depict, with unflinching sincerity, the imbalance and upset in the natural order that arises from the murder of innocents. It's harrowing, but strangely beautiful too.
If Hold The Dark lacks the sheer razor-wire tension of Saulnier's earlier crime-horror corkers, it still knows how to make the carnage count-to force us to experience, on a gut level, every casualty.
