"A brilliant Gothic fantasy about an artist who has disappeared, leaving only a diary; and through that diary we move into flashback to observe a classic case history of the Bergman hero haunted by darkness, demons and the creatures of his imagination until he is destroyed by them. The tentacular growth of this obsession is handled with typical virtuosity in a dazzling flow of surrealism and full-blooded Gothic horror. First the hour of the wolf, the sleepless nights of watching and waiting, when the artist (von Sydow) describes–but we do not see–the horde of man-eating birdmen and insects who have invaded his sketch-book. Then the daylight encounters when a car crawling over the horizon, a girl picking her way through the rocks on a sun-bleached beach, look momentarily like weird, threatening insects. Finally, the full nightmare of the soirée at a château gradually transformed into Dracula's castle as its aristocratic inhabitants become werewolves and vampires, and the artist flees into a forest of blackened, clutching trees, pursued by monstrous birds of prey. In its exploration of the nature of creativity, haunted by the problem of whether the artist possesses or is possessed by his demons, Hour of the Wolf serves as a remarkable companion piece to Persona."

"Hour of the Wolf is seen by some as a regression after Persona. It isn't that simple. Persona was a breakthrough, a success that gave me the courage to keep on searching along unknown paths. For several reasons that film has become a more open affair than others, more tangible: a woman who is mute, another who speaks; therefore a conflict. Hour of the Wolf, on the other hand, is more vague. There is within that film a consciously formal and thematic disintegration. When I see Hour of the Wolf today, I understand that it is about a deep-seated division within me, both hidden and carefully monitored, visible in both my earlier and later work: Aman, in The Magician (The Face); Ester, in The Silence; Tomas, in Face to Face; Elisabet, in Persona; Ismael, in Fanny and Alexander. To me, Hour of the Wolf is important since it is an attempt to encircle a hard-to-locate set of problems and get inside them. I dared take a few steps, but I didn't go the whole way. Had I failed with Persona, I would never have dared to make Hour of the Wolf. Hour of the Wolf is not a regression but an uneasy step in the right direction."

Philip Strick: "Film Notes"