[Revisit Review]
I'm honestly considering starting an official exploration of what I like to call "Family Horror." And by that, I don't mean horror films geared towards families. I mean films where horrific things seem to spring from the anxieties and fears of a family unit. These manifestations can be many things: ghosts (The Shining [1980]), monsters (The Babadook [2014]), and in the case of Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly (1961), mental illness. I don't think Bergman set out to make a horror film here, but many passages are nevertheless downright terrifying. Karin's first visit to the attic where she hears voices through a crack in the wallpaper is particularly unnerving. I was also fascinated by how, in its own weird way, the film has a kind of happy ending with the father reconciling with the son. Well, it's as happy an ending inasmuch as any Bergman film that wasn't an explicit comedy could end happily.
9/10
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