Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) (1968)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Anthony L

  
  Hour of the Wolf deals with the haunting of creatives and artists and the effect it has on others. Indeed, the film has a very haunting quality about it too which Bergman has opened up to the audience in a way that only a master film maker can do. Max von Sydow plays the aloof painter… More
  Hour of the Wolf deals with the haunting of creatives and artists and the effect it has on others. Indeed, the film has a very haunting quality about it too which Bergman has opened up to the audience in a way that only a master film maker can do. Max von Sydow plays the aloof painter well but it's Liv Ullmann as his suffering wife who really steals the show. Shot, like much of his work around this time, in the cold desolate coastline to great effect. Not my favourite Bergman film at all but a great horror film and a huge influence on the generation of film makers to come. I wonder if Rosemary's Baby was influenced by Hour of the Wolf?

• danny d

  
  as with many bergman films, i toiled for some time to find a worthwhile and redeemable interpretation, but thankfully, this one gained a slight amount of clarity by the end. not in line with bergman's more masterful works, but not as bad as his overdone floundering films either.… More
  as with many bergman films, i toiled for some time to find a worthwhile and redeemable interpretation, but thankfully, this one gained a slight amount of clarity by the end. not in line with bergman's more masterful works, but not as bad as his overdone floundering films either. some of the dialogue was interesting and max von sydow was convincing as usual.

• Jonathan H

  
  Hour of the Wolf is the only horror film Ingmar Bergman ever made. And it's amazing. Clearly influenced here by German Expressionism, Bergman and cinematographer Sven Nykvist use exaggerated and stylized light and shadow and deliberately disorienting camera angles to full affect.… More
  Hour of the Wolf is the only horror film Ingmar Bergman ever made. And it's amazing. Clearly influenced here by German Expressionism, Bergman and cinematographer Sven Nykvist use exaggerated and stylized light and shadow and deliberately disorienting camera angles to full affect. Bergman's penchant for intense, unblinking close-ups compliments this style of shooting well, and adds a sense of the surreal to the already bizarre happenings. The performances of the castle apparitions -- by actors such as Erland Josephson, Bertil Anderberg, and Ingrid Thulin -- certainly have a definite expressionist, stylized feel to them as well. This expressionist sensibility also calls for the dramatic externalization of the internal; this fits the subject matter of the film in two ways. First and most obvious, the expression of Johan's inner turmoil breaks the psychological barriers between self and other and between reality and unreality (and later, between life and death) necessary for Bergman to create true horror. Second, and a bit less obvious on the surface, is Bergman's own expression here of the internal realities of his own life. It may seem a bit too on-the-nose, but is there any doubt that Von Sydow's Johan is a stand-in for the writer/director himself? The character is a troubled, brilliant artist whose creative visions and past both interfere with his relationship with his pregnant wife. It is certainly no coincidence that the wife in question is played by Liv Ullmann, who at the time was herself pregnant with Bergman's child; the demands of Bergman's art and personality had threatened for a while to tear the two of them apart. There is clearly a dark side to the creative impulse, and its obsessions can impair life in the real world, whether for fictitious artist Johan Borg or real-life Ingmar Bergman. Perhaps that's why this film strikes such a chord: it feels personal, while at the same time fiercely artistic. A must-see for psychological horror fans.

• Drew S

  
  A difficult sit to be sure, but Ingmar Bergman's stab at surrealist horror is a delight. It's thematically sort of fuzzy, barely frightening at all, and maybe a bit underconfident (Liv Ullmann's bookend monologues are interesting to see but ultimately unnecessary), both… More
  A difficult sit to be sure, but Ingmar Bergman's stab at surrealist horror is a delight. It's thematically sort of fuzzy, barely frightening at all, and maybe a bit underconfident (Liv Ullmann's bookend monologues are interesting to see but ultimately unnecessary), both of which are acceptable losses when you consider that this is a genre Bergman had never attempted. I'm sure the movie's brooding isolationism and pervasive sense of danger were much scarier forty years ago sitting in a theater...I think that, more than a lot of movies, this gets garroted a bit by a home viewing. Still, it's mysterious and well-acted and spare in the best way, and definitely worth a watch if you like unconventional horror films.

• Cassandra M

  
  "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. This seems to be one that divides fans of the master, but I loved… More
  "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. This seems to be one that divides fans of the master, but I loved it. It's easy to see why people see this as being a bit of an odd-one-out in Bergman's output: it's very direct in it's depiction of disturbed states of mind, directly illustrating hallucinatory states rather than just hinting at them. Others have pointed to references to other films of the horror genre, which seem undeniable. Not that you'd mistake this for a film by anyone but Bergman. It's rich in connections with other of his films and autobiographical references (such as the terrifying description of being locked in a cupboard as a child). It can be reasonably thought of as Bergman's 'horror film' but he takes on the genre very much on his own terms. It's a film that lingers long in the mind, with many unforgettable scenes (including the amazing Magic Flute scene) aided by Sven Nykvist's wonderful chiaroscuro photography. The use of music is (as ever with Bergman, the most musical of directors) extremely intelligent: the scene with the boy is set apart from the rest as much by the music as the photography. Given the quality of the cast, you'd expect superb performances. As ever, von Sydow and Ullmann are excellent, with equally good supporting performances. At times I was reminded of Rilke's only novel, The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge. If you don't know this, I urge you to seek out a copy: there's a distinctly Bergmanesque atmosphere to the whole work, but there are specific images that seem to link to this film. This is a film that repays repeated viewings. Despite it's extremely disturbing subject matter, to me it's not as emotionally draining as many of Bergman's other films (such as Shame or Winter Light), in spite of (or perhaps because of) the visual horrors on display. Still, I recommend it very highly.

• Pierluigi P

  
  Max Von Sydow is a painter, attacked by demons he created out of existential guilt. Liv Ullman plays his faithful spouse. An unreal, nightmarish parade of phantasmagorical visions conceived by Sven Nykvist and his expressionistic, tantalizing photography; and Bergman's… More
  Max Von Sydow is a painter, attacked by demons he created out of existential guilt. Liv Ullman plays his faithful spouse. An unreal, nightmarish parade of phantasmagorical visions conceived by Sven Nykvist and his expressionistic, tantalizing photography; and Bergman's introspective and deliberately misleading narration. Possibly his most enigmatic and obscure film.

• Ken S

  
  Bergman's Horror Film

• Stephen M

  
  An unfathomable but fascinating psychological horror movie about an artist's mental disintegration. The line between fantasy and reality is so blurred that it becomes impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. Though difficult, frustrating even, there are remarkable… More
  An unfathomable but fascinating psychological horror movie about an artist's mental disintegration. The line between fantasy and reality is so blurred that it becomes impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. Though difficult, frustrating even, there are remarkable scenes and individual shots which reverberate long afterwards in the memory; the murdered child/demon bobbing up and down in the sea is particularly haunting.

• Christopher M

  
  This totally strange, and very disturbing, "horror" film by Ingmar Bergman plays out much like an Edgar Allan Poe tale (that's a good thing, by the way). There's just something about a story set on an isolated island that is inherently scary, so that helps - but… More
  This totally strange, and very disturbing, "horror" film by Ingmar Bergman plays out much like an Edgar Allan Poe tale (that's a good thing, by the way). There's just something about a story set on an isolated island that is inherently scary, so that helps - but besides that this movie really is very scary (beautiful at the same time), just not in any obvious way. The utterly dark world Bergman creates places us right in there with the characters played Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann as they face a series of strange encounters with a group of people (ostensibly human) who live in a sprawling, shadowy mansion on the other side of the island. The work of both actors is phenomenal, and the actors playing the antagonists are all very good at being subtly very frightening. Definitely worth checking out.

• Tom S

  
  Ho hum. Just one more spellbinding, worldview-bending Bergman flick.

• Laurence C

  
  Bergman cooks up an interesting hybrid of human drama and gothic horror-- we never quite know when the borders of reality are crossed-- but the result is never less than astonishing. It's still very hard for me to decipher if the whole thing is a metaphor for a nosediving couple… More
  Bergman cooks up an interesting hybrid of human drama and gothic horror-- we never quite know when the borders of reality are crossed-- but the result is never less than astonishing. It's still very hard for me to decipher if the whole thing is a metaphor for a nosediving couple relationship, but some elements are pretty clear in their relevance. The most striking quote here has to be ''is it true that once a woman lived with a man for long enough, she becomes like him?''. Von Sydow and Ullman are equal to themselves, as always, and there is a strong sense of delusion dominating from the 45-minute mark. Very interesting... may have to watch if again to understand what it all means, though.

• Anthony V

  
  Hey, wanna see a horror film from one of the greatest filmmakers ever? Check this out. Disturbing and beautiful.

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