Hold the Dark

Hold the Dark is a 2018 American action thriller film directed by Jeremy Saulnier from a screenplay by Macon Blair. It is based upon the novel of the same name by William Giraldi. The film stars Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough, Tantoo Cardinal, and Julian Black Antelope. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2018, and was released on September 28, 2018, by Netflix.

Plot
In December 2004, Medora Slone (Riley Keough) summons Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) to hunt down the wolves responsible for the disappearance of three small children in the village of Keelut, Alaska, including her 6-year-old son Bailey. Medora mentions a hot springs to the north of town.

Medora's husband Vernon (Alexander Skarsgård) is fighting the war in Iraq. He discovers another American soldier raping a local woman. Vernon wounds the rapist with a knife and hands the weapon to the woman.

While tracking the wolves, Core meets an old woman who tells him Medora "knows evil." He finds a pack of wolves eating their young. At the Slone house, he finds Medora missing and discovers Bailey's frozen, strangled body. The villagers claim Medora is possessed by a wolf-demon.

Vernon returns from Iraq and goes to the morgue. He kills the officers and the coroner, takes Bailey's body, and buries him in the snow. Vernon proceeds to track Medora and commits several murders along the way, including John, an elderly hunter who treated him with wolf-oil as a child for his psychopathy.

Core finds Medora at the hot springs and warns her her husband is coming. Before they can flee, Vernon shoots Core in the chest with an arrow. Vernon strangles Medora until she pushes the mask off his face and he releases her. Vernon and Medora leave, dig up Bailey's grave, and pull the coffin behind them as they trek through the snow. Core is rescued and wakes up in the hospital with his daughter Amy at his bedside.

Production
In September 2015, it was announced Jeremy Saulnier would direct the film, based upon a screenplay by Macon Blair; while Eva Maria Daniels, Russell Ackerman and John Schoenfelder would produce the film under their VisionChaos Productions banner and Addictive Pictures banners respectively, A24 would distribute the film. In January 2017, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film, with Anish Savjani and Neil Kopp joining as producers. In February 2017, Alexander Skarsgård, Riley Keough, James Bloor, James Badge Dale and Jeffrey Wright joined the cast of the film.

Filming
Principal photography began on February 27, 2017, and concluded on April 26, 2017. Filming took place in and around the areas surrounding Calgary, Drumheller and Kananaskis Country, Alberta, which were used to substitute for Alaska.

Release
It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2018. It also screened at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2018. It was released on September 28, 2018.

Critical reception
Hold the Dark received generally positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported approval rating based on  reviews, with an average score of. The website's critical consensus states, "Hold the Dark's unsettling aesthetic offers more of what filmgoers expect from director Jeremy Saulnier — and is often enough to prop up shaky narrative underpinnings." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 63 out of 100 based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".