A beautiful and pious maiden leaves her country home making her way through the woods to church when she is accosted and murdered by three vile brothers, who happen to find themselves at their victim's home and subject to her kin's mercy. Ingmar Bergman's adaptation of a 13th century folk ballad (which has been reworked several times as horror fodder that totally misses the point) is haunting, violent, and brooding, filmed with pristine black and white photography with many memorable sequences, the finest being its striking ending.
**** out of ****
