Review of "Hour of the Wolf" (DVD)

Although the image of the man playing chess with the devil in 1957's The Seventh Seal is an indelible one -- and the one that comes to most of our minds when we think of the great Swedish director -- Ingmar Bergman's only real horror film came along some eleven years later with Hour of the Wolf.

The epitome of gloomy gothic horror, Hour of the Wolf tells the story of an artist, Johan Borg (Max Von Sydow), whose sanity lies in delicate balance with madness when his nightmares come to life. Scary, unsettling, and undeniably beautiful, Hour of the Wolf is a ghost story in the strangest, most forlorn sense.

The artist finds himself confined to an island, where he is visited by spectral creatures who will each become a spooky signifier to something haunting that happened in his past. Johan suffers from insomnia and shaky nerves, and his nights are spent waiting in horror for the magical hour before dawn… the hour of the wolf. His wife, Alma (Liv Ullman) soon starts to see the nightmares, too. Alma, telling her story in busted third wall format, unspools the disturbing tale of how she tried to help him overcome his dangerous obsession with his all-too-real ghosts.

Bergman is irrefutably an influence of surrealist directors like David Lynch, Ken Russell, Roman Polanski, and to some extent Darren Aronofsky, but it's cinematographer Sven Nykvist's bold use of stark black and white imagery that really bring the chills right into your bones. An eerie hollowness pervades this short (hour and a half), intense film. If you like your horror arty, gothic, and unforgettable, then The Hour of the Wolf is one for your library. (Note: If you find puppets freaky, you just might want to sleep with the lights on after seeing this movie!)

The brand-new digital film transfer presented in the aspect ratio of 1.37:1, and the black and whites are superbly crisp. It's presented in the original Swedish audio (with English captions optional), with rather obtuse over-the-movie commentary by Bergman biographer Marc Gervais. "The Search for Sanity" featurette shows a 2002 on-camera interview with Liv Ullmann in which she discusses this film and her other extensive work with Bergman. There are also photo galleries showing the auteur at work on Hour of the Wolf, and an, er, titillating trailer with all the 1960s European nudity intact.

Review by Staci Layne Wilson for Horror.com