“The Hour of the Wolf is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful.”
Ingmar Bergman directed several masterpieces and a couple of them have come close to being classified as a horror film. Persona, The Virgin Spring (which was remade as the horror film The Last House on the Left by Wes Craven) and The Silence. But the only “official” horror movie Bergman made was this 1968 surreal film, Hour of the Wolf.
Max von Sydow is a troubled artist, living on an island with his pregnant wife Liv Ullmann. He’s been disturbed by nightmares lately which occur during the hour of the wolf. He tells his wife about his dreams / visions / memories and some of them are pretty disturbing. Later they are invited to a baron’s castle for supper where things get more disturbing and weird.
The film breaks the fourth wall at the start and is told in flashback by Liv Ullmann. The original working title for the film was called The Maneaters. Bergman got sick while working on the script and when he recovered he put the film off to make Persona. The film is definitely not for everyone’s taste. I think I would actually choose Persona over this film but it definitely has some creepy moments.
