Clevercell Very disappointing...

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Wordiezett So much average

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Martin Bradley Bergman made "Hour of the Wolf" in 1968 and it's one of his most personal films. It also verges on a parody of what we expect a Bergman film to be, being a typically dark and forbidding study of the artist destroyed by his own demons. Moving between a conventional horror film and a wholly individualistic study of madness it's not in the front rank of Bergman pictures yet it is still quite remarkable and is head and shoulders above anything a lesser director might have turned out. As the artist losing his sanity and the wife barely able to cope both Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann are superb while the luminous black and white cinematography is by Bergman regular Sven Nykvist.

FilmCriticLalitRao In Swedish film "Vargtimmen"/Hour of the wolf, Ingmar Bergan has portrayed the various facets of different lives lived by an artist. It allows viewers to see the artists living with their family members as well as interacting with other members of the society. The focus of the film hinges on actor Max Von Sydow who is the artist in question. Everything related to his lives namely private space as well as personal space has great significance for people around him. Every aspect of his life depends on who is around him and how he is interacting with the people around him. This film is also an inquiry about the questions related to roles and responsibilities of an artist. This is one reason why moral issues have also been included in this film's narrative. Although it is presented as a horror film,"Vargtimmen" is in essence a drama film which has portrayed women as weak characters. This is something which might disturb some women viewers as they have not been given opportunities to reveal their contributions in the success of their men.Lastly, it is accepted that most films directed by Ingmar Bergman are autobiographical in nature. "Hour of the wolf" is no exception to this rule as director Ingmar Bergman has included incidents from his past life including a strong father/son conflict.

TheLittleSongbird The Hour of the Wolf is not one of my top 5 favourite Ingmar Bergman films, but is still an outstandingly good film in my eyes. I do think that it does need about three or four more viewings, as first time you may be confused or irritated. That was the case with me actually, I wasn't sure what to make of it first time, three viewings later I loved and appreciated it. Maybe The Hour of the Wolf could have told us more as to why Johan was tormented so much. That said, there is much to love. The story is not the deepest or most focused of Bergman's films, but does have several moments especially the deliciously nightmarish puppet sequence that stay with you forever that makes you satisfied still. The cinematography and close-ups are truly haunting and the images breathtaking to watch. The music is wonderful, with some of the best use of Mozart I have seen or heard in any film, the direction from Bergman is superb and while it doesn't provoke thought in the way The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries do the script doesn't feel too stilted. The characters are at least intriguing, the most successful being the sinister Lindhorst, who is played splendidly by Georg Rydeberg. Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman have given better performances in Bergman's films, and it is not to do with that they're not good, it's just that Sydow in The Seventh Seal and Ullman in Autumn Sonata are performances rank as two of the best performances across Bergman's filmography. Von Sydow is suitably haunting and stoic, and Ullman is wonderfully expressive. Overall, not one of my favourite Bergmans and not something everybody will adore but on repeat viewings it came across to me as an outstandingly good film. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Steve Pulaski Hour of the Wolf is an intriguing horror film, difficult to comprehend, complex in the best possible way, and exceptionally creepy and deep. It tells the story of a painter who confides in his pregnant wife that he believes that the people he encounters are demons of all different sorts. He has a chillingly persistent case of insomnia, and stays awake all hours of the night with his wife, especially during the "vargtimmen," also known as "the hour of the wolf," where, he states, is when the most births and deaths occur.Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) is the painter, and his wife is Alma (Liv Ullmann). The movie follows them sort of sympathetically, as we get a brutally horrifying narrative on how the thought of demons have almost corrupted Johan as a whole, and the sad fact that he may even have a difficult time functioning on his own. He seems to always need some careful, human support.Ingmar Bergman, a director known for his aesthetically deep pictures, such as his involving character studies, and intellectually challenging portrayal of life, dabs into the horror genre for the first (and maybe only) time with beautifully suspenseful material. This is a surrealist fantasy, equipped with a marvelous performance by von Sydow, a Bergman regular, who was one of the sources to The Seventh Seal's greatness.The character I felt the most sympathy for was not Johan, but Alma, who is forced to watch her husband be eaten alive by his own fear and insanity. This is the second Bergman film that has intimately covered, what one expert calls, "personality disintegration." In Wild Strawberries, we saw how one man's shallowness and pompous attitude, which refused long time friends and relatives access to his mind, lead him down the road of an unhappy, unfulfilled lifestyle he begins to loathe at the end of his life. However, he was more in control of his life than Johan, who seems to fighting a battle that simply doesn't want to lose here.Bergman's Gothic horror film is elegantly shot and eerily photographed, with long shots of bleak landscapes and intimate closeups in the dead of night. Hour of the Wolf is infinitely smarter and more appealing than much of the horror films we are met with today, and it deserves to be seen more than one of those cheap, low budget monster films that rerun week after week on Svengoolie.Starring: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, and Gertrud Fridh. Directed by: Ingmar Bergman.