“Oh endless night, when will you ever lighten?” The painter Johan Borg poses the same question as Tamino in “The Magic Flute” as he is plagued by demons in sleepless nights. He and his pregnant wife Alma live in a secluded holiday home on the island of Baltrum - until, one night, he vanishes without a trace. His diary entries and Alma's testimony serve to reveal Johan's inner torment: his anguishes ranging from sinister childhood memories to the cynical guests in Baron von Merkens' castles, and the alleged philanderings of a former lover, the beautiful Veronika Vogler. Bergman later insisted that "“Hour of the Wolf” is not a horror film." But the film's appearance refutes the director: Its motifs and characters - such as a person crawling across the ceiling, or a vampiric child - are borrowed from horror classics, its references ranging from E.T.A. Hoffmann (who inspired the names of Bergman's “demons”) to Hitchkock's “The Birds”.