My first tryst with Jeremy Saulnier was the 2015 punk vs. nazi thriller Green Room. I had no idea what I was walking into. But the barn burner of a movie, where late Anton Yelchin delivered one hell of a performance, and Sir Patrick Stewart played a very against-type Nazi cult leader, did more than enough for me to check out the director’s other work. So I immediately jumped onto Blue Ruin, Saulnier’s previous film, where he gave a whole new spin to the usual revenge drama genre. It was as anxiety-inducing as Green Room, but much more methodical and subdued in approach. Both films, however, managed to put the name of Jeremy Saulnier in my semi-pro-level cinema enthusiast head. But I eventually moved on. Saulnier did come back to the scene with Hold the Dark, arguably his biggest film, boasting of a stellar cast and the backing of Netflix,...