Hold the Dark (2018)
7/10
The film is more concerned with tone, atmosphere and theme than it is with character or plot.
29 September 2018
I loved Green Room, but this was a very different movie. I don't really know what to make of it, because it is a film that doesn't have much of a plot, has characters that rarely speak, and is quite a slow burn. This is the kind of film that if you half-watch whilst doing something else, you would almost certainly hate it.

So the setup for the film doesn't matter really because within the first 20 minutes it has gone off those rails, but the setup is that a woman's child has been taken by wolves (the third child in the town to have gone missing) and so she writes a letter to a wildlife expert and author to come to Alaska and hunt down the wolves that did it. The film takes so many twists and turns very suddenly and abruptly that by the time it ends you kinda forget that this is how it started. The film is more concerned with tone, atmosphere and theme than it is with character or plot.

As expected the film is pretty damn violent. Not quite Green Room-level, but when it happens you feel it. It also happens very abruptly and suddenly, with little to no hint that anything is about to happen.

Overall the film reminded me of so many other films, but stands on its own as something unlike any of them. It had elements of Wind River, The VVitch, The Grey and Prisoners, but it really is a unique movie. It is somewhere between a 6/10 and a 7/10 for me but it is interesting and unique enough for me to say 7/10 for now. Definitely need to rewatch it.
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