The Hour of the Wolf

This film makes almost no sense whatsoever. Even if, like me, you read all about what it is apparently about before you watch it, it will still make no sense. It is not even close to being a spoiler to say that an artist heads to a secluded island with his wife where they are both (but mostly just the artist) haunted by … people … mostly old weird people. And that is pretty much it really. They just sort of turn up, or they go and visit them and creepy shit happens. It is very creepy shit though. Even if you don’t decide you want to spend the six hours it would take to work out what is actually going on, what is real and what isn’t and what it all means this is still a pretty great film. It is a tribute to Ingmar Bergmans skill as a director that the only horror(ish) film he directed was a massive wtf fest and he still makes it mesmerizing to watch. The horror references abound – this bit looks like the birds, that guy looks like Bela Lugosi, but they are all just tweeked a little bit to make it feel like something more than just playing with the genre is going on. Don’t ask me what it is though. This film wins one award from me – the award for ‘the most tense scene where what you think is going to happen doesn’t happen then something else which is more horrific than what you thought was going to happen, happens’. Its a prize which needs a better title I admit but the scene did make me nearly have to change my underpants it was so tense. You’ll know the one if you watch it – detergent manufacturers could even market their products with the byline “gets out the results of watching The Hour of the Wolf” – but then everyone would have to watch The Hour of the Wolf to check their outlandish claims.