Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Here's a film that has monsters, pressing darkness, creepy silence, characters who may or may not be insane, and blood, yet feels completely different than anything else in the "horror" genre. It's a poetic study of the darker side of the human psyche and I consider Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf to be one of the best horror films ever made.

We open with Alma, played by Bergman mainstay Liv Ullmann, speaking to us about her husband's disappearance. In flashbacks we learn about Johan, underplayed by Max von Sydow, a painter who can become quite dark when his work isn't going well. They travel to their island summer home to help him focus, but instead he grows darker, and as a viewer you are drawn in to his isolation and paranoia.

In one scene he shows Alma the drawings he's been working on. He flips through pages of his notebook as he talks but we have to imagine the pictures based on his words... we never see them. He describes a woman who threatens to take off her hat — and her face with it; a bird-man that can move extremely fast; humans that look like insects. Just fifteen minutes in and this is some of the scariest shit I've ever seen.

The people in his drawings are a family that live in a nearby castle. They invite Alma and Johan over and the brooding silence of their normal life is replaced by raucous laughter and chatter at the dinner table. Talk of fangs and oozing sores litter the already bizarre conversation as the camera closes tighter and tighter on the two unsuspecting guests. Is this a family of vampires, cannibals, or just a figment of Johan's imagination?

This is a horror film in the truest sense of the word. There is a foreboding sense of terror that extends like a thread. It quivers and moves and before you realize it's around your neck, slowly cutting off your air. Like most of Bergman's films it works best if you don't try to over-analyze it. Instead, let the noose tighten and allow the images and sounds to penetrate you. After you're released, dare to ponder the questions Bergman asks about life and art.

And if you see a man with a bird face… run.