New Movies: Hour of the Wolf

"Sin enters by dread, but sin in turn brought dread with it," wrote Kierkegaard, describing the guilt that floods the dark night of the soul. Another Scandinavian, Ingmar Bergman, plays out that quasi-religious concept by examining one soul in the blackness just before dawn—the Hour of the Wolf, "when nightmares are most palpable,' when ghosts and demons hold sway."

On an island off the coast of Sweden live a cadaverous, obsessed painter (Max von Sydow) and his pregnant wife (Liv Ullman). The time is summer, and Von Sydow is slowly going mad. He...