That F@%*ing Scene : Introducing Vernon Slone
I might’ve overreacted to my initial viewing of Jeremy Saulnier’s Hold the Dark.
The movie is brimming with brutality and ominous symbolism, but it doesn’t always makes sense. While Saulnier has faith in the audience’s ability to understand without being explained everything, it is sometimes just weird for the sake of being weird. It might not be a ten like I originally awarded but it’s still in the high eights. Eight five or eight six, somewhere around that. I’m an emotional guy and Hold the Dark grabbed me by the feels.
One scene in particular grabbed my attention. It’s part of Vernon Slone’s introduction in the Iraqi desert, where he basically turns everyone into a corpse for shits and giggles, except he doesn’t seem to be enjoying it one bit. Here’s the scene. Watch it first and read the rest after:
Why is Vernon Slone’s introduction so fucking creepy and cool at the same time?
I found three reasons:
1) The cigarette by the window. This scene is all about details. Vernon is smoking a cigarette when he stumbles upon a fellow soldier raping an Iraqi woman. He puts the burning cigarette on the windowsill before entering the house and stabbing his rapey colleague to death and picks it back up with a bloody, but steady hand afterwards. What he just did was incredibly dangerous and anyone right in their mind would’ve shaken like a leaf. Not Vernon.
That tells us about who he is. Vernon Slone is a fucking predator. Not a sexual predator. One that enjoys killing for the sake of it. A lot of this scene is shrouded in mystery in regards to who Vernon really is, but that cigarette tells us something: he’s at peace in the fog of war. Death is death to him. The hunt is the hunt. If you give him a reason to kill you, he will gladly kill you. That informs so many of his decisions for the rest of the movie.
2) He kills a fellow US soldier... and then fucking leaves! This scene is three minutes long or so, but it comes on the tail end of another scene where Vernon mows down Iraqi insurgents with a mounted .50 cal. Then, he stabs one of his own to death. Not exactly out of a misplaced sense of righteousness. He LEAVES THE PREMISE AFTERWARDS. BEFORE ANYONE NOTICES. This fascinates me. He’s not at war for the same reasons as everyone else.
He’s over there because he enjoys it. Vernon Slone feels no deep sense of patriotism. He enlisted because he got paid to kill people, so that’s what he did. Whoever gave him a reason to. We don’t know anything about his victim either. There is no exposition that would justify his execution. He simply left himself exposed to a predator. His unchecked lust for sex and power ended up getting the best of him. He paid the price for venturing in the metaphorical wilderness.
3) HE HANDS THE VICTIM HIS FUCKING KNIFE. This is the best part of Vernon Slone’s introduction because it both creates and answers questions. Why the fuck did he do that? Was it a ploy to get rid of the murder weapon? A kind gesture to a terrified victim? A little bit of both? If the nameless victim is found with a dead marine to her feet and a knife in her hand, won’t she be arrested? Goddamnit, Vernon. I WANT ANSWERS. THIS IS HAUNTING ME.
Part of me cannot help but think Vernon meant well. That he wanted the poor girl to feel more secure in this ungodly war zone. But every piece of evidence suggests otherwise. That dude is not that nice, but he provided the girl with a tool to survive a while longer in utter chaos. Vernon is a bad guy, but he’s probable one of the best things to ever happen to this poor, nameless girl. She might’ve been dead soon after if he didn’t happen to be around.
If you haven’t read the novel or seen the movie, I urge you to do so. It’s weird and intense and not exactly logical, but it’ll take you to wild places where most movies don’t even dare go.
