Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Alma (Liv Ullmann) watches helplessly as her artist husband (Max von Sydow) slowly descends into madness.

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The "hour of the wolf" (roughly 3am to 4am) is the hour between night and day. It is a limbo which belongs to neither the morning nor the evening. It is also the time when the line between sanity and insanity starts to blur.

While contemporary audiences might disagree with this movie being labeled as a "horror film", I'd be hard-pressed to think of things more horrific than what the characters in this film endure. This is horror in the German Expressionist sense of the word. Not only is it a film about the horror of losing your own sanity, but also the horror of watching someone you love descend into madness. Both in terms of subject-matter and imagery, this film fits perfectly among horror classics like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu.

Persona (1966)

Persona tells the story of two women. One, an actress (Liv Ullmann), has suddenly stopped speaking. The other, her nurse (Bibi Andersson), senses the actress's strength of will and is intimidated by her at first. They stay together in a little house on the beach where they begin to get close and then almost become enemies, and their personalities begin to merge.

The film is sexual, nightmarish, beautiful, tense, puzzling. I set out to watch it expecting to not understand the film, but rather just experience it for what it was. The black and white photography is stunning and there are a couple very memorable monologues spoken by the nurse, who seems to experience every possible emotion in this house.

The film opens and then interjects in the middle with very brief shots that seem to have nothing to do with the story...a sinister face, a nail being driven through a hand, a dead rabbit. Roger Ebert, in his short essay on the film, tells us these images are taking us through film history, an example of what we can find in some of the earliest films. These images, for me, add to the dreamlike quality of the film. Many silent films evoke this feeling for me...the early days of cinema show a world that is nothing like our world today. To watch a film so outside of one's comfort zone has an intoxicating effect on the soul. Or maybe that's just me again.

(This film is currently streamable on Netflix!)

Let The Right One In (2008)

Want to play a game? Let’s say you’re at the mall, and someone approaches you about attending an advanced screening of a film. They cannot tell you the title but they describe it as: an adaptation of a popular book about a relationship between an adolescent and a vampire. What do you do? If you say yes you might have just condemned yourself to 2 hours of allegorical abstinence schmaltz. Say no and you could be missing out on a highly nuanced film about love and loneliness. What do you do?

Like most great genre films Let The Right One In is about much more than blood-sucking. This restrained creep-fest could also be at home on a shelf next to Harold and Maude. Two characters, both decidedly out of step with “normal” society, coming together as an off-beat couple for the ages. No matter how weird or unlovable you might think you are, there is someone out there for you. Did I mention the title comes from a Morrissey song? Who would have guessed?

So what about the scares? Is this just touchy-feely stuff about lost souls finding each other? Oh no no no. This film delivers the chills too. Shot in a very objective and utilitarian manner, this film allows the scares to really creep up on you. Many of the most gruesome moments occur either out of frame or in wide shots with cleverly placed shadows and branches. Mood and sound provide a starting point from which your imagination can run wild.

Sadly this film was overlooked by the Golden Globes and The Academy. Genre always has to battle a hard road for acceptance. But trust me, it is no fluke that this film has won 18 awards worldwide. A film like this is something to be treasured. So the next time someone invites you to go see a vampire movie - agree without reservation. It could be shit, but it could also be gold.

There's a remake that I haven't seen but hear is pretty good. See the original first though. It's streaming on Netflix!