Holding the dark - embracing it within, or keeping it away - is what all of Saulnier's films are about.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 29, 2018

A grim, unsettling and ultimately forgettable Netflix horror flick that has a surprisingly high daytime body count for something that takes place mostly in the dark night of the Alaskan winter.

| Oct 10, 2018

Saulnier's lens has become more defined and his pursuit of the shot intenser...Saulnier's pursuit of the shot gives the film not just an authenticity, but encapsulates the mood of the adapted screenplay.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 4, 2018

The film never coheres outside of those flashes, ultimately delivering a disappointing, confusing, but undeniably fascinating experience.

| Sep 28, 2018

It would be nice to report that Hold the Dark extends the promise of Blue Ruin and Green Room, but it doesn't, at least not for me.

| Sep 28, 2018

Wright's disturbed visage conveys his character's torn-between-two-worlds distress, with the actor using darting looks and burdened body language to beautifully articulate the war raging within.

| Sep 28, 2018

It makes for intriguing and often gripping viewing, but delivers a more confounding experience than is necessary.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 28, 2018

Anger, violence and surrealism pervade the engrossing new thriller from "Blue Ruin" director Jeremy Saulnier.

| Sep 28, 2018

[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.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 28, 2018

A bold, mesmerizing and journey into a land of shadows and mystery that will leave a deep and unnerving impression.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 27, 2018

Its determined ambition and atmospheric skill keeps Saulnier firmly in the category of directors to watch.

| Sep 27, 2018

Suddenly, what seemed like a man-vs-nature survivalist tale morphs into something that's part Arctic Noir and part violent art-horror.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 27, 2018

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.

| Original Score: B- | Sep 27, 2018

Challenging, dreamlike, and unrelentingly bleak, Hold the Dark is a western - and a Saulnier film - unlike any other.

| Sep 26, 2018

Hold the Dark might have made a compelling book, but the film is one grim and pitiless journey.

| Sep 26, 2018

A thriller that aspires to something deeper but never figures out what.

| Sep 26, 2018

Hold the Dark's ludicrous seriousness comes to feel like a mask for what's essentially a genre story of murder and mayhem.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Sep 26, 2018

A brutal slog of a film, admirable in its fearlessness in terms of dark subject matter, but the brutality doesn't feel worth it in the end.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 13, 2018

The story doesn't entirely hold together after the fact... but as is typical for Saulnier, it's shocking and moving while it's actually going on.

| Sep 13, 2018

Hold the Dark evades the payoff of easy explanations, but the filmmaker crafts such an immersive blend of shocking, violent developments and lyrical imagery that the specifics rarely matter.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 13, 2018