Let’s be honest: Hour of the Wolf is less “psychological horror” and more “existential IKEA manual.” You stare at it, flip it around, squint at the diagrams, and somewhere around the midpoint you start sobbing and questioning all your life choices. Ingmar Bergman’s moody little head trip is 90 minutes of artistic foreplay with no climax, where dread simmers just below the surface but never quite boils—unless you count you, boiling with impatience.
This is a horror movie the way gaslighting is a magic trick. Bergman holds out the promise of the uncanny, the grotesque, even the demonic, but instead gives you a depressed painter monologuing about goblins while his pregnant wife blinks at him like a Swede slowly realizing she’s married to the embodiment of wet drywall.
Plot: A Nightmarish Descent Into Someone Else’s Therapy Session
Max von Sydow plays Johan Borg, a painter whose mental state is so fragile, he could be broken by a particularly stern IKEA return policy. He lives on an island with his endlessly patient wife Alma, played by Liv Ullmann, who spends most of the film listening to Johan talk about his imaginary tormentors—The Birdman, The Insects, The Schoolmaster, and The Lady With the Hat—all of whom sound like cast-offs from a Sesame Street episode written by Franz Kafka.
Johan is slowly unraveling, haunted by visions and sexual guilt and what I’m pretty sure is just creative burnout. Somewhere in the mix is an ex-lover named Veronica who may or may not be dead, a creepy castle dinner party with sentient nightmare guests, and a flashback where Johan kills a small child in the most casual “oh by the way” confession since O.J.’s “If I Did It.”
Eventually, Johan slaps on some eyeliner and flees into the woods, never to be seen again. Alma, who survives being shot (a rare highlight), wanders the forest like a hungover Snow White wondering if her marriage vows covered interdimensional madness.
Characters: Sad Eyes and Sadder Monologues
Max von Sydow delivers his lines with the energy of a man slowly being eaten by ennui and possibly meat-eating shadows. Johan is the kind of tortured genius who would ghost you for six months, then show up uninvited to your art show with a dead seagull and a three-hour rant about dream geometry.
Liv Ullmann plays Alma with enough quiet suffering to qualify as a saint in three major religions. Her performance is like watching someone lose a staring contest with depression. Her role is to listen, suffer, and eventually narrate the entire film like a murder victim giving a TED Talk from beyond the grave.
The supporting characters—Baron von Merkens, Corinne, Heerbrand—are creepy aristocrats straight out of a vampire-themed Eyes Wide Shut reboot, but without the benefit of masks or pacing.
Horror Elements: Who Needs Monsters When You Have Monologues?
Despite being billed as a horror film, Hour of the Wolf has approximately zero jump scares, zero gore, and one werewolf—metaphorically speaking. What it does have is awkward silences, long takes of people not blinking, and enough repressed Catholic guilt to fill a cathedral.
There’s a recurring theme of Johan being hounded by “demons,” which could represent guilt, anxiety, lust, art, or a really bad diet. These creatures manifest through parlor tricks like distorted faces, whispery voices, and old women wearing hats that seem to be auditioning for The Golden Girls of the Damned.
You want real horror? Try sitting through the first hour and realizing you’re only halfway through a descent into some Swede’s seasonal depression.
Themes: Art Is Suffering, and So Is Watching This
The film, like most of Bergman’s work, is soaked in themes of madness, isolation, mortality, creative anguish, and marital deterioration. Which is a fancy way of saying “Nothing happens, but very poetically.” It’s a movie that makes you feel like you’re the one losing your mind, except you paid for the privilege.
You could argue this is a portrait of an artist coming apart at the seams, or a subtle allegory for Bergman’s own insecurities. Or you could argue it’s a bleak Swedish prank with a budget and subtitles.
Final Verdict: The Hour of the Wolf Is When the Audience Checks Their Watch
Hour of the Wolf may be beloved by art house aficionados and film professors with a penchant for black turtlenecks and slow sipping espresso, but for the rest of us, it’s like trying to read someone else’s dream journal while blindfolded and underwater.
Yes, it’s gorgeously shot. Yes, Ullmann and von Sydow are excellent. But so is staring at a painting of a screaming man for 90 minutes—and at least The Scream doesn’t require subtitles.
Rating:
🐺🐑🕰️🛌💤 (1.5 out of 5 existential wolves)
Watch if You:
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Enjoy films that make your therapist sigh
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Have an ironic affection for emotional torment in subtitles
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Think sleep deprivation and hallucinatory psychosis is a solid date night
Avoid if You:
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Thought The Babadook was too slow
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Value plot development over whispered existential breakdowns
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Aren’t ready for 90 minutes of psychological gaslighting disguised as cinema
