Johan Borg (Max von Sydow) is an artist living with his young pregnant wife, Alma (Liv Ullmann), on a remote island off the coast of Germany. The couple spends their summers on the island away from other people. Johan is troubled with eerie thoughts of strange creatures that inhabit his dreams to the point where they are interfering with his work. Because of this, he suffers from insomnia. He shows his wife sketches of these unusual nighttime visions.
One day, an old woman appears at their cottage. She tells Alma to read Johan’s diary, which he keeps in a black bag under the bed. Alma reads the diary. In it Johan describes seeing, in addition to the strange creatures, his old flame, Veronica Volger (Ingrid Thulin).
On the other side of the island is a castle owned by Baron von Merkens (Erland Josephson) and his wife, Corinne (Gertrud Fridh). The Merkens’ are entertaining a bunch of strange friends. The Baron visits Johan while is on the cliffs painting and invites him and his wife over to the castle for a little party. At the castle Corinne shows them a portrait of Veronica that had been painted by Johan.
Alma becomes alarmed with Johan’s deepening depression. He tells her the story of the ‘vargtimmen’ or ‘hour of the wolf’. He also tells her about his fears from childhood about being locked in a closet as punishment and the subsequent beating. He then tells Alma another story about a young boy that he once killed. Johan’s reality and his hallucinations begin to blend together. Alma is upset about Johan’s fascination with Veronica. He shoots Alma and races off to the castle to confront his demons, only to find out that they are real.
“Hour of the Wolf” AKA “Vargtimmen” was released in 1968 and was written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. It is a Swedish psychological thriller with some horror aspects.
It’s considered the only horror film that Director Bergman ever did. There’s not a lot of real horror to it, but there is quite a bit of psychological surrealism in the film. It is a very arty film and typical of Bergman. How much of what is going on it is real and how much is Borg’s psychological dream is unclear. I found the movie to be confusing. It is a dark and rather dreary film so it’s not going to be for everyone.
According to Bergman, ‘The hour of the wolf is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is the deepest and nightmares the most vivid. It is the hour when insomniacs are hunted by their worst anxieties, when ghosts and demons are at their most powerful. The hour of the wolf is also the hour when most babies are born’. Although it sounds like an old folktale, the concept was supposedly created by Bergman for the film.
During filming, Liv was very pregnant with her daughter Linn Ullmann. Linn’s father is actually Ingmar Bergman, but they were never married to each other. During her career, Liv made ten movies with the director.